'Look to yourselves, my masters; the lions are got loose!'

All the world knew that ever since King James had set the fashion by
taking so much pleasure in the lions at the Tower, strange beasts
had been kept in the castle of Raglan.

The new terror broke the spell of the old, and the parliamentary
commissioners fled. But which was the way from the castle? Which the
path to the lions' den? In an agony of horrible dread, they rushed
hither and thither about the court, where now the white horse, as
steady as marble, should be when first they crossed it, was, to
their excited vision, prancing wildly about the great basin from
whose charmed circle he could not break, foaming, at the mouth, and
casting huge water-jets from his nostrils into the perturbed air;
while from the surface of the moat a great column of water shot up
nearly as high as the citadel, whose return into the moat was like a
tempest, and with all the elemental tumult was mingled the howling
of wild beasts. The doors of the hall and the gates to the bowling
green being shut, the poor wretches could not find their way out of
the court, but ran from door to door like madmen, only to find all
closed against them. From every window around the court--from the
apartments of the waiting gentlewomen, from the picture-gallery,
from the officers' rooms, eager and merry eyes looked down on the
spot, themselves unseen and unsuspected, for all voices were hushed,
and for anything the bumpkins heard or saw they might have been in a
place deserted of men, and possessed only by evil spirits, whose
pranks were now tormenting them. At last Upstill, who had fallen on
the bridge at his first start, and had ever since been rushing about
with a limp and a leap alternated, managed to open the door of the