Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/82

58 isade, and suggested that it would be well to set up one of the siege-engines in order to knock the palisade to pieces.

"There is no need," said the Count. "Let the rogues stay in their hen-coop. We shall be over the walls and in the castle before they can do us any harm worth the mention. Why, Luke, you would spend the morning putting together your mangonels, rams, and other big machines, and meanwhile I could take the castle, and have every inmate thrown out to you over the battlements!"

"At least let us send a flight of arrows against them," Luke suggested. "We may wing one or two, and dash their courage a little. I learned in the Holy Land not to leave an enemy on the flanks of an attacking party, if I learned little else there."

"No, Luke, no," answered the Count. "You may be right when the forces are more nearly equal; but here we are more than ten to one, and we may afford a few of these hired rascals. They don't mind being killed, Luke—it's their trade, man!"

Luke shrugged his shoulders and walked away to make ready for the attempt to storm the castle. It is true that the Castle of the Red Lion was not a great stronghold, but it had been carefully de-