Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/190

164 Friar, bidding Amabel to kept on the watch against a surprise, went running back to his mangonel, where the loss of his marksmanship was seriously felt.

It had occupied only a few minutes to repel this attempt to scale the precipice, but when the Friar was once again upon the front wall he found he had arrived in the very nick of time, for the Count's forces were coming up the plateau in battle array, and in an instant more would be within range. The Friar ordered that the mangonels should be loaded with light baskets filled with small stones, so that they would do more execution upon the infantry, and then he waited.