Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/282

 The men manned the walls and the women stood near to furnish fresh arrows, water, and sometimes stone, boiling water, and bundles of rags steeped in oil and then set on fire.

Again and again the assailants attempted escalade and were beaten back. Stones, arrows flew, and men on both sides fell rapidly. On the second day Drda fell from a blow of a stone that bruised his shoulder violently. Instantly Lady Ludmila knelt on the bloody rampart at his side. Cheering him up with affectionately soothing words, with the aid of a stout retainer she bore him to a shelter; and as he fainted from the shock she stooped and kissed him again and again; and raised his head, and gave him strong restoratives; and only left his side when the wounds had been bathed and bound, and he lay conscious but motionless on the soldier’s straw bed that her hands had smoothed and softened.

Gallantly did the defenders repel every attack, and the assailants seemed unequal to the reduction of the fortress.

On the fourth day Nicolas exposed his still defiant victim on the most conspicuous elevation whence the attack proceeded. Even this maneuver failed to check the storm from the wall, or diminish the resolution of the garrison.

Wenzel himself entered the besiegers’ camp; and perceiving the current of events, and finding himself not in fact the real commander, allowed Duke Nicolas to proceed with Zawis according to his pleasure.

Then with ostentatious purpose Nicolas ordered