'You fill a basket with the tools he'll want,
while I bring him downstairs. Open the doors below, some of you. And
light the great captain, others! Is there no business afoot, my lads,
that you can do nothing but stand and grumble?'
They looked at one another, and quickly dispersing, swarmed over the
house, plundering and breaking, according to their custom, and carrying
off such articles of value as happened to please their fancy. They had
no great length of time for these proceedings, for the basket of tools
was soon prepared and slung over a man's shoulders. The preparations
being now completed, and everything ready for the attack, those who
were pillaging and destroying in the other rooms were called down to the
workshop. They were about to issue forth, when the man who had been last
upstairs, stepped forward, and asked if the young woman in the garret
(who was making a terrible noise, he said, and kept on screaming without
the least cessation) was to be released?
For his own part, Simon Tappertit would certainly have replied in the
negative, but the mass of his companions, mindful of the good service
she had done in the matter of the gun, being of a different opinion, he
had nothing for it but to answer, Yes.
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