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 turned to chaos, it is time to take the law into our own hands."

This ended the discussion, and we all filed out with Gangnot at our head, his hammer in his huge four-fingered hand, (he had crushed one of them on the anvil). He looked like a walking tower, tall and strong, his face blackened by smoke, and one eye squinting horribly, but we all crowded in behind his broad back, and each man ran to his house to get his weapons. I should not like to swear that they all came back armed; perhaps some of the poor fellows could not find their axes or their arquebuses, for when we assembled in the marketplace, our ranks were rather thin, if the truth were told; but those who did come were true as steel; men you could put your trust in.

When we got to the Town Hall, we found by great good luck that the main door was wide open; perhaps because our kind shepherd was so sure that his lambs would let themselves be shorn without so much as a baa-a, that he and his watch-dogs, having partaken of a hearty dinner, were all wrapped in slumber. Under these circumstances our assault was by no means heroic; we just walked in, and caught, as they say, the bird on her nest.

Racquin was dragged out of his bed, just as he was, like a skinned rabbit; and he looked anything