Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/307

Rh monstrances, the Count's impatience to continue the attack could be no longer restrained. He believed that, by advancing along the western rampart, he could throw a bridge over the gap separating the wall from the western door of the keep, and could then batter down the door and gain entrance to the keep, talking it by storm. Luke argued that the keep was far stronger than the other towers, and better provided with means of resisting attack. The garrison, too, knowing that they were in the last stronghold, would fight with desperation.

"The only attacks that have been quickly successful," the Count insisted, "are the bold assaults. Your tower was burnt; your mine was discovered, and proved useless; your mangonels might have battered upon the defenses for a year without doing much harm. But the ram has cleared a way for us every time, and whenever we have breached the walls, the cowardly knaves of the garrison have scuttled away to their next wall or tower. No, Luke; you are a shrewd mole, but you have not the courage to make a good soldier. You are but a clerk or a recreant priest, after all. Yours is not the red blood that makes the soldier!"

Luke's flaming cheeks proved this false as he said: