Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/227

Rh very presence of Satan himself, and they could not be stayed. A number were pushed over the edge of the rampart and falling into the courtyard were killed or seriously injured; but most of them made their way down the ladders and disappeared in the darkness.

Hugh, seeing the confusion into which the attacking party had been thrown by the explosion, led a body of his archers out into the courtyard through a side opening in the diagonal intrenchment, and by delivering a heavy volley of arrows put to flight the few men of the Count who were still upon the rampart of the south wall—so that it was once more cleared of the enemy. Hugh would have been only too glad if he could have held the recaptured ground, but he did not think it worth the lives it would cost them. As soon as the Count's men could be rallied, he knew that the breach would admit them to the outer bailey, and that since the burning of the southwest tower there would be no hope of making a stand once more at the inner gate, where Edgar had engaged the Count in single combat. So he withdrew his men to the shelter of the defenses that were yet uninjured, where they stood watching the fountain of fire that rose from the southwest tower.

Later in the night, the event showed that the besiegers had, as the Friar supposed, mined the