Beyond these an organ was pealing, and overhead the clapper of the alarm bell was beating more furiously than ever.

All realised that they stood upon the threshold of the chapel and that the conventuals had taken refuge there.
Mr.Butler checked upon a sudden suspicion.

"Maybe, after all, they've taken us for French," said he.
A trooper ventured to answer him.

"Best let them see we're not before we have the whole village about our ears." "Damn that bell," said the lieutenant, and added: "Put your shoulders to the door." Its fastenings were but crazy ones, and it yielded almost instantly to their pressure--yielded so suddenly that Mr.Butler, who himself had been foremost in straining against it, shot forward half-a-dozen yards into the chapel and measured his length upon its cold flags.
Simultaneously from the chancel came a great cry: "Libera nos, Domine!" followed by a shuddering murmur of prayer.
The lieutenant picked himself up, recovered the lantern that had rolled from his grasp, and lurched forward round the angle that hid the chancel from his view.

There, huddled before the main altar like a flock of scared and stupid sheep, he beheld the conventuals--some two score of them perhaps and in the dim light of the heavy altar lamp above them he could make out the black and white habit of the order of St.Dominic.
He came to a halt, raised his lantern aloft, and called to them peremptorily: "Ho, there!" The organ ceased abruptly, but the bell overhead went clattering on.
Mr.Butler addressed them in the best French he could command: "What do you fear?
Why do you flee?
We are friends--English soldiers, seeking quarters for the night." A vague alarm was stirring in him.