The citizens with shouts of alarm took to their heels.

The men-at-arms were powerless against this rain of missiles, and the knights, hastily closing their visors, shouted contradictory orders, which no one obeyed.
In the confusion no one noticed the prisoner.

Seizing a moment when the attention of all was fixed upon the wall, he leaped from the platform, and making his way unnoticed through the excited crowd of men-at-arms, darted down a narrow lane that divided the castle from the wall.

He ran along until, 100 yards farther, he came to a staircase by which access to the battlements was obtained.

Running lightly up this, he kept along the wall until he reached the turret.
"Thanks, my noble Cnut!" he exclaimed, "and you, my brave fellows.