whiter than ever, when horror sprang along with recognition to
his eyes, when borne along by the crowd behind he saw his
position and who was before him--it was only then when his mean
figure shrank, and he quailed and would have turned but could
not, that I recognized the Coadjutor.

I was silent now, my mouth agape. There are seconds which are
minutes; ay, and many minutes. A man may die, a man may come
into life in such a second. In one of these, it seemed to me,
those two men paused, face to face; though in fact a pause was
for one of them impossible. He was between--and I think he knew
it--the devil and the deep sea. Yet he seemed to pause, while
all, even that yelling crowd below, held their breath. The next
moment, glaring askance at one another like two dogs unevenly
coupled, he and Bezers shot shoulder to shoulder into the
doorway, and in another jot of time would have been out of sight.
But then, in that instant, I saw something happen. The Vidame's
hand flashed up above the priest's head, and the cross-hilt of
his sheathed sword crashed down with awful force, and still more
awful passion, on the other's tonsure! The wretch went down like
a log, without a word, without a cry! Amid a roar of rage from a
thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest
heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared
within!

It was then I saw the power of discipline and custom. Few as
were the troopers who had followed him--a mere handful--they fell
without hesitation on the foremost of the crowd, who were already
in confusion, stumbling and falling over their leader's body; and
hurled them back pell-mell along the gallery. The throng below