By the camp-fires that night the Free-lances caroused loud and long; but in the little hill-town the children slept sound while the men and women prayed with pale stern faces.  An hour after midnight all the garrison from the towers and all the strong young men assembled in the square.  They were divided into two bands, and were instructed to descend cautiously by rope-ladders into the ravine on the eastern side of the town.  Thence without sound of tongue or foot they were to steal through the darkness till they had reached certain positions on the flanks of the besiegers, where they were to wait for the signal of onset.  Frate Agnolo gave each of them his blessing, as one by one they slid over the wall on to the rope-ladders and disappeared in the blackness of the ravine.  Noiselessly they marched under the walls of the town till they reached their appointed posts, and there they lay hidden in the woods till morning.