Palace Guards on horseback were chasing them.
The doctor thought it all looked like a picture in a magic lantern.
The sun was shining brightly, the grass glittered, cannon balls burst like puffs of cotton. The powder flames shot up just as if someone were catching sun-beams in a mirror.
The horses pranced, reared up and spun around.
A white smoke veiled the park and the Palace of the Three Fat Men.
"They're running away!"
"They're running away!
The people have been beaten!"
The running men were getting closer and closer.
Many of them fell on the way.
From the top of the tower they looked like coloured rags falling on the grass.
A cannon ball whizzed over the square.
Someone dropped the binoculars.
The cannon ball burst, and everyone standing on the platform at the top of the tower rushed back down the stairs.
The locksmith caught his leather apron on a hook.
He turned round, saw something terrible and shouted at the top of his voice:
"Run for your lives!
They've captured Prospero the Gunsmith!
They'll be inside the gates any minute!"
There was a mad scramble in the square.
The crowd rushed away from the gates and ran down the little streets leading off the square.
The noise of the shooting was deafening.
Doctor Caspar and two other men stopped on the third floor landing.
They looked through the narrow window built in the thick wall.
There was just room for one of them to have a good look.
The other two could only get a peep from behind his head.
Doctor Caspar was one of the two who could only peep.
But even that was more than enough to see the horrible things that were going on.
The great iron gates flew open.
About three hundred people rushed through them.
These were workers in grey cloth jackets with green cuffs.
They fell to the ground bleeding.
The Guards galloped right over them, swinging their swords and shooting.
The yellow feathers in their shiny black oilskin hats fluttered in the wind. The horses opened their foaming red mouths and rolled their eyes.
"Look!
Look!
There's Prospero!" the doctor cried.
They were dragging him along at the end of a rope.
He stumbled, fell and rose again.
His red hair was matted with blood, and there was a big noose tied round his neck.
"Prospero has been captured!" the doctor cried again.
Just then a cannon ball hit the laundry.
The tower leaned, swayed, steadied for a moment, and then came crashing to the ground.
The doctor tumbled downstairs, losing his other heel, his walking-stick, his bag and his spectacles on the way.
CHAPTER TWO
TEN SCAFFOLDS
It was a lucky fall: Doctor Caspar did not crack his head, nor broke his bones.
But no matter how luckily one may fall from a toppling tower, it's far from pleasant, especially if you are not young (or, rather, are old), as Doctor Caspar Arnery was.
The good doctor fainted from fright.
When he came to, it was evening.