even in the fifteenth century, and Dick, besides, had a start, which he

rapidly improved, until, as he drew near the entrance of a narrow lane,

he even paused and looked laughingly behind him.

Upon the white floor of snow, all the shipmen of Shoreby came clustering

in an inky mass, and tailing out rearward in isolated clumps. Every man

was shouting or screaming; every man was gesticulating with both arms in

air; some one was continually falling; and to complete the picture, when

one fell, a dozen would fall upon the top of him.

The confused mass of sound which they rolled up as high as to the moon

was partly comical and partly terrifying to the fugitive whom they were

hunting. In itself, it was impotent, for he made sure no seaman in the

port could run him down. But the mere volume of noise, in so far as it

must awake all the sleepers in Shoreby and bring all the skulking

sentries to the street, did really threaten him with danger in the front.

So, spying a dark doorway at a corner, he whipped briskly into it, and

let the uncouth hunt go by him, still shouting and gesticulating, and all

red with hurry and white with tumbles in the snow.

It was a long while, indeed, before this great invasion of the town by

the harbour came to an end, and it was long before silence was restored.

For long, lost sailors were still to be heard pounding and shouting

through the streets in all directions and in every quarter of the town.

Quarrels followed, sometimes among themselves, sometimes with the men of

the patrols; knives were drawn, blows given and received, and more than

one dead body remained behind upon the snow.

The Black Arrow