"Is this thy boasted influence with the commons and youths of the
city?"

"My humble influence, may it please your Grace (I say it now openly,
and I will say it a year hence, when King Edward will hold his court
in these halls once again), my influence, such as it is, has been used
to save lives which resistance would waste in vain. Alack, alack!
'No gaping against an oven,' gracious lady! Your barge is below.
Again I say there is yet time,--when the bell tolls the next hour that
time will be past!"

"Then Jesu defend these children!" said Elizabeth, bending over her
infants, and weeping bitterly; "I will go!"

"Hold!" said the Duchess of Bedford, "men desert us, but do the
spirits also forsake us?--Speak, friar! canst thou yet do aught for
us?--and if not, thinkest thou it is the right hour to yield and fly?"

"Daughter," said the friar, whose terror might have moved pity, "as I
said before, thank yourself. This Warner, this--in short, the lesser
magician hath been aided and cockered to countervail the greater, as I
forewarned. Fly! run! fly! Verily and indeed it is the prosperest of
all times to save ourselves; and the stars and the book and my
familiar all call out, 'Off and away!'"

"'Fore heaven!" exclaimed Alwyn, who had hitherto been dumb with
astonishment at this singular interlude, "sith he who hath shipped the
devil must make the best of him, thou art for once an honest man and a
wise counsellor. Hark! the second gun! The earl is at the gates of
the city!"