Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/289

261 trust to the mercy of the Count or to take the chances of fighting their way through a superior force. While they were yet undecided first one door gave way, and then the other followed, and the voice of the Count de Ferrers cried out: "Down with your arms or you are all dead men!"

Feeling the uselessness of resistance, the garrison surrendered, and the Count was in possession of the southeastern tower, and had taken also more than a third of the survivors of the garrison. His men, swarming into the tower by both doors—for ladders had been brought to the place where the wall had been destroyed by the explosion—raised a mighty cry, and shouted long over their victory, though Luke did his best to check them.

"Fools!" he cried, "if you but had kept your mouths closed we might have taken the keep also! But now they will destroy the bridges."

Luke was right. The cheer of victory was a signal to the garrison that the tower was taken; and knowing from those driven back to the keep along the rampart, that the Count's men had cut off the retreat of those in the tower, they now took measures to separate the keep from the wall upon its eastern side. As in most castles, the keep in Mortimer Castle was built so as to be an independent stronghold; and where the sidewalls came