Another might have despaired at that, but he rose with no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening, he spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as little noise and rustling as might be, be piled the straw in it, compressed the bundle, and, cutting the bed-cords with his dagger, bound all together with them.

In three steps he was in the embrasure of the window, and, even as the men in the passage thrust the lieutenant aside and with a sudden uproar came down to the door, he flung the bundle lightly and carefully to the right--so lightly and carefully, and with so nice and deliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd it fell beyond the reach of an ordinary leap.
An instant and he was on the floor again.

The men had to unlock, to draw back the bolts, to draw back the door which opened outwards; their numbers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them.

When they burst in at last, with a roar of "To the river! To the river!"-- burst in a rush of struggling shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him standing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, his arms folded.

And the sight of the passive figure for a moment stayed them.
"Say your prayers, child of Satan!" cried the leader, waving his weapon.
"We give you one minute!" "Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in.