"My goodness! Don't you know that Prospero the Gunsmith and Tibul the Acrobat led the people to storm the Palace of the Three Fat Men?"
"Prospero the Gunsmith?"
"Yes.
There are Guards on the other side of the gates.
No one can leave town. And the Palace Guards will kill off everyone who has gone with Prospero."
Just then they heard several faint shots.
The young woman dropped her fat cat.
It plopped to the ground like a piece of raw dough.
The crowd roared.
"I seem to have missed a very important event," the doctor thought. "That's because I stayed at home this past month, working day and night, and my door was locked.
I simply had no idea of what was going on."
In the distance a cannon boomed several times.
The sound bounced like a ball and rolled along on the wind.
Doctor Caspar was not the only one to get frightened and stumble backwards. The crowd scattered.
Children began to cry, pigeons flew up flapping their wings loudly, and the brown dogs began to howl.
The cannon boomed again and again.
Then the crowd began to push towards the gates, shouting:
"Prospero!
Prospero!"
"Down with the Three Fat Men!"
Doctor Caspar didn't know what to do.
He was well known, and now many people recognised him.
Some rushed towards him, as if he could protect them.
But the doctor himself was close to tears.
"What's going on there?
How can we find out?
Maybe the people are winning, but then again, maybe they've all been killed?"
A dozen people ran towards the corner of the square where three narrow streets met.
An old house with a high tower stood there.
The doctor decided to climb the tower, too.
The ground floor was occupied by a laundry.
It was as dark as a cellar inside.
A winding staircase led up to the tower.
Some light came through the tiny windows, but it was hardly enough to see by. Everyone climbed slowly and with difficulty, because the stairs were rickety and there was no railing.
Imagine how hard it was for Doctor Caspar to reach the top!
When he had climbed only twenty steps the others heard him shout in the darkness:
"Help! My heart's bursting! And I've lost the heel of my shoe!"
As for his cape, the good doctor had lost it back on the square, after the cannon had boomed for the tenth time.
There was a platform at the top of the tower with a stone railing all around it.
Here one could see for at least thirty miles away.
But there was no time to admire the view, though it was really pretty.
Everyone was looking towards the scene of battle.
"I have a pair of binoculars.
I always take along a pair of binoculars with eight lenses," Doctor Caspar said.
"Here, have a look," he added and unhooked the strap.
The binoculars were passed round.
Doctor Caspar saw a great many people in the fields.
They were running towards the town.
They were fleeing.
From afar they looked like coloured flags.