Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/288

260 they began to chop it down—a task that was the easier because it had been somewhat cracked and splintered by the blows of the battering-ram at the time just before the explosion of the mine. While the foremost axmen were at work on the door, their companions held their bucklers over their heads, and protected them from the falling missiles dropped upon them by the defenders on top of the tower. Whenever one of the axmen became wearied or was injured another took his place, and so the sound of their blows was almost continuous, and the door yielded rapidly.

The Count, as soon as he saw these axmen beginning their assault, ordered forward a strong column provided with scaling ladders and beams. This column mounted the connecting-wall between the attacked tower and the keep, easily driving back the few of the defenders who had advanced along the wall, and then with one of their beams, proceeded to batter in the door that was on that side of the southeastern tower. The garrison within the tower were now being attacked on two sides, and saw that they must choose between trying to cut their way through the assailants who held the wall on their right or being captured within the tower.

Either way their case was desperate enough, and they could not decide whether it was best to