All preparations for the attack having apparently been completed, the leaders advanced to the head of their men and harangued them, though the distance was too great for the Englishmen to hear what was said.
This done, one of the knights closed his visor, and the other tried to follow his example, but the calque, dented from the effects of a blow, refused to allow the visor to descend. A couple of squires sprang forward to aid their lord, and the group, standing well in front of the rest, made a tempting mark.
Redward was quick to act.
"Quickly, d.i.c.k; nine score paces, and no windage!"
d.i.c.k, a l.u.s.ty yet experienced archer, had already notched his bow and fitted an arrow. Leaning slightly forward, and throwing all his weight into the act of drawing the six-foot bow, the man loosed the shaft. Even as it sped Buckland also let fly, and the defenders anxiously awaited the result of their comrades" skill.
The first arrow struck and shivered itself against the uplifted visor of the French knight; but Redward"s fared better, for, hitting the mail-clad figure under the raised arm, it sank deeply into the leader"s body. Amid a roar of execrations on the invaders" side, and a hearty English cheer on the part of the bowmen, the knight staggered and fell on his face. The two squires stood their ground bravely, and with difficulty raised the ponderous armour-clad body of their master and bore it to the rear.
"Here they come!" shouted the master-bowman. "See, they shoot! On your faces, men!"
Crouching down behind the friendly shelter of the stone walls, the eight defenders awaited the onslaught, Redward alone watching the advance through a loophole, his head protected by an iron cap, while he held a stout buckler over the aperture as an additional protection against the deadly hail of arrows and bolts.
Raymond, crouching close to his father, felt that the bitterness of death had pa.s.sed; his terror had vanished, and he was as ready as the rest to strike a blow in self-defence, though against tremendous odds. The unfamiliar sound of the arrows striking the woodwork and quivering with an indescribable _ping_, or shattering themselves against the stonework, the invaders" war cry of "St. Denis," and the metallic clanging of the advancing men-at-arms were signs of an invisible enemy whom he was on the point of meeting in mortal combat, and when, after a seemingly long and weary wait, the hail of arrows slackened and he heard his father cry, "To arms!" he actually welcomed what might prove to be his death-summons.
At the word of command the defenders sprang to their feet, rushed to the loopholes, and fired as fast as they were able into the dense ma.s.ses of the advancing enemy. At that short range neither leathern coat nor iron hauberk was proof against the deadly arrows, and man after man fell writhing on the ground, their fall serving to dismay their comrades and to cheer their antagonists.
Clambering over the low fencing, the men-at-arms still advanced; the air was thick with the groans of the wounded and the shouts of "St.
Denis!" "Tuez les miserables!" "A bas les poltrons!" To which the defenders answered not a word, but in grim silence discharged their arrows into the disorderly press before them.
By sheer weight of numbers the French men-at-arms gained the front of the house, and with reckless bravery attempted to tear away the improvised defences. Bows were cast aside, and the defenders, seizing swords and spears, made vicious thrusts through the loopholes as the shadows of the enemy were thrown across them.
At length the planks across one of the windows gave way, and a crowd of mail-clad warriors essayed to clamber through. Thereupon the defenders retreated to the opposite wall, and resuming their bows, volleyed their deadly shafts against the rash intruders, who, overwhelmed by the concentration of arrows in the narrow s.p.a.ce, gave back in disorder.
Suddenly a figure clad from head to foot in plate armour--a form of defensive mail only just coming into use--appeared in the window. In vain the arrows rattled on the thrice-welded plate, and for a moment it seemed certain that the intaking was accomplished. But Redward, dropping his weapon, sprang forward, and before the mail-clad warrior could swing his long and heavy sword, the archer had thrown himself bodily upon the Frenchman.
Realising the danger, the man tried to return, but Redward, seizing him in his powerful grip, strove to drag him into the house. Lying across the window ledge, his bulk filling the whole aperture, the Frenchman effectually prevented any of his comrades from coming to his a.s.sistance, his mail-clad legs, kicking and sprawling without, keeping his would-be helpers at a discreet distance.
Then came a terrific struggle, Redward heaving and hauling on his enemy"s bascinet, while the other tried his utmost to shake off the relentless grip. Nothing short of the breaking of the laces of the Frenchman"s calque would release the man, and even then his unprotected head would be pierced by a ready arrow.
The knight"s resistance grew feebler, till at length a hollow voice exclaimed, "Je me rends!"
"No quarter to base ravagers!" was the stern reply, and with a final mighty heave Redward dragged the steel-clad warrior through the window, and cast him with a sickening clang upon the stone floor.
Then, drawing the knight"s own _misericorde_, he cut the laces of his bascinet and plunged the dagger into his Adversary"s throat.
CHAPTER IV
OF THE GALLANT STAND OF THE NINE ARCHERS
DISMAYED by the fall of their second leader, the attackers retired out of bowshot, leaving the nine defenders weary and spent, yet exultant over their success.
Their respite, however, was short, for, joined by another body of men from the galleys, the invaders again advanced, this time led by another knight, a short, broad-shouldered man, cased, like his unfortunate predecessor, in plate armour, over which he wore a yellow surcoat charged with the arms of the Spinola family.
"Ah! A rascally Genoese!" exclaimed Redward as he saw the device.
"Now we must look to ourselves, for these Genoese combine the skill of the French and the roguery and treachery of the Spaniards; moreover, they have rendered a good account of themselves both by land and sea in their wars with the State of Venice."
Halting at a safe distance, the crossbowmen, protected by mantlets, faced the side of the house where the last attack had been made; a body of men-at-arms deployed and took up a position on each of the two adjacent sides; while a strong detachment of routiers, or lightly-armed men, worked round to the rear, the house thus being entirely surrounded.
Once again the hail of bolts began, and under the cover of this heavy discharge the men-at-arms gained the walls without the slaughter that marked their previous attempt.
With their axes they commenced a violent onslaught on the door, while the defenders were almost without the means of replying, firing only through the loopholes whenever a head appeared or a chance missile was thrown into the room.
At length, emboldened by the slight resistance, one of the men-at-arms was hoisted on the shoulders of two of his comrades, whence he climbed upon the roof. Here he began to vigorously attack the thatch for the purpose of annoying the besieged and diverting their attempts to hold the door.
Alarmed by the noise overhead, Raymond took his despised crossbow, and firing haphazard, sent a bolt through the roof. There was a loud cry, and with a ma.s.s of thatch and broken rafters the body of the soldier came crashing down, his chest transfixed by the thick, heavy bolt.
Immediately Redward was hoisted up to the gaping hole, and, regardless of the danger of being picked off by an arrow, he hurled a small sack of quicklime upon the men who were battering at the door.
Blinded by the powerful chemical they gave way, and ran screeching with agony, their leader circling round in an aimless manner, striving the while to tear off his bascinet and clear his eyes from the dust that was slowly and surely depriving him of sight.
Once more the English took heart at the repulse, taunting their enemies as they fell back. Again they had a short respite, though the inaction told more on their wearied bodies than the excitement of the fight.
Raymond felt a warm stream trickle down his arm, and found, to his surprise, that he had received a clean cut on his left shoulder. How or when it occurred he was unable to understand, for in the heat of the struggle he had been blind to his surroundings and the sense of pain.
The rest of the garrison all showed signs of the tremendous odds.
Buckland was gashed across the forehead by an arrow, while his hands were bruised and bleeding from the effects of his struggle with the knight at the window.
Walter Bevis was sitting in a corner of the room, trying to extricate a crossbow shaft that had all but buried itself in the upper part of his right leg, and in spite of the excruciating pain was slowly drawing out the barbed head, muttering the while prayers to the Virgin and his patron saints.
The others, having bound up their slighter injuries, cheered the sufferer, and in response to his entreaties, withdrew the bolt. A gush of blood followed, and the man, unable to bear the agony, fainted. Hastily applying a bandage, with the rude knowledge of surgery that they possessed, his comrades left him and returned to their posts to await the next a.s.sault.
"Certes! They do not mean to let us be," exclaimed Redward; "it pa.s.seth my understanding why they should waste time and many lives in attempting to take our little fortress. Courage, my friends! Another repulse and they will leave us in peace."
But, notwithstanding his repeated encouragements, the master-bowman looked doubtfully on the new phase of the attack. A party of men were bringing a huge mangonel ash.o.r.e from one of the galleys, and setting it in position, prepared to bombard the house with heavy stones, each capable of tearing a jagged hole in the stonework. At the same time, the French archers advanced on all sides with wisps of burning tow affixed to the heads of their arrows.
At a score paces from the house stood a solitary gnarled trunk of a dead tree, and towards this the bowman cast a hasty yet anxious glance. Then noting with satisfaction that the little wind there was blew from that direction, he gave a sigh of relief.
In the meanwhile the men about the mangonel had set the powerful spring, and a ma.s.s of rock lay poised on the gigantic spoon, awaiting only the release of the engine to cast the deadly missile towards the doomed house.
In terrible suspense the garrison crouched behind the stoutest part of the masonry, expecting each moment to find the huge stone crashing over their heads.
The noise of the spring as it was released could be distinctly heard, then with a whirlwind of dust the stone struck the ground at a short distance from the house and rolled harmlessly against the wall.
The next discharge sent the projectile fairly into the roof, knocking away the greater part and half filling the house with fragments of rafters, beams, and thatch.
""Twill be less thatch to burn!" remarked Buckland encouragingly, though the moral effect of the mangonel was beginning to tell.
Suddenly there was a crash that shook the building to its foundations, and amid a shower of stones and dust a piece of rock forced its way into a corner of the building, leaving a gap a bow"s length in width, through which the daylight streamed in, dazzling the defenders with the sudden change from semi-darkness.
At the same time a shower of firebrands descended on the remains of the roof, and in a moment the house was enveloped in flames.
"We are lost!" shouted one and another of the little garrison in dismay. "Let us sally out and die like men, rather than rats in a trap!"