XIII
A Truce Asked For—The Friar's Reply Sent by Arrow-Mail—A Second Attempt to Storm the Castle—The Swinging Box—The Axmen Attack the Tower Door—Part of the Garrison Captured—The Warning Cheer—The Keep and a Single Tower Still Hold Out—The Count Releases the Prisoners on Parole—The Last Tower Is Attacked by Storm—A Second Mine Exploded—The Friar Escapes to the Keep—The Count's Courage—The Last Tower Is Taken—The Keep Remains—The Friar's Exhortation.
CHAPTER XIII
The relief caused by the discovery of Luke's plot was so great that the grief of Lady Mortimer and the rest in a moment changed to a joyfulness that was hilarity. But there in full view still remained the unhappy prisoner, for whom they could not help feeling a sense of pity. They wondered what would be her fate when the besiegers knew their trick had failed, but they saw no reason why the innocent victim should suffer, since she had been no more than a dummy in no wise to blame for the failure.
Then they discussed what reply should be made to the long letter Luke had sent, and upon the Friar's advice decided to wait as long as they could before answering at all—for, as he reminded them, every hour gained was an advantage to the defense, and all the more so now, when they knew that Amabel must have succeeded in passing the lines of the Count's soldiers, and thus was free to carry out her errand. The Friar went further. Saying that it was fair to meet guile with craft, he wrote a short scroll begging that they might have a few more hours to decide so momentous a question; and this was dispatched by a trusty messenger under a flag of truce.
Their request was for a delay until sunset, and was coupled with a promise to give an answer in positive terms by that time. To Edgar's delight this ruse was successful; the Count—or, rather, Luke for him—said that he fully understood how painful was their position, and that, although he had all the advantage and could really dictate his own terms, he could not bring himself to the point of preferring cruelty to mercy. He therefore hesitated to proceed to harsh measures, hoping that the castle would be surrendered at sunset without need of further bloodshed.
This respite was so much clear gain to the garrison, and they employed it in preparing for the attack sure to be delivered that night. By Hugh's direction, full liberty was given to the soldiers to devote the time to rest or recreation as they chose, for he knew that they would fight the better that night if they came to the struggle rested, well fed, and in good spirits.
But when the sun was close to the hills upon the horizon, the Friar submitted to Lord Edgar a note which he had prepared as a reply to the summons. This letter read as follows:
"Edgar, son of Francis, Baron Mortimer, to the Count de Ferrers:
"The time granted for consideration of your offer to receive the surrender of Mortimer Castle having now expired, you are at liberty to renew the attack, which will be resisted to the last. But if the Count desires to spare the shedding of innocent blood, and to save life, Edgar, Lord Mortimer, would request that the Count set at liberty the unfortunate maiden whom he has caused to masquerade as the Lady Amabel Manners, since she has played her part well, and deserves some reward for her performance. No further truce or respite is desired, since all terms will be rejected.
In order to avoid any danger to any messenger, who might receive little mercy at the Count's hands, Hugh suggested that this reply could be sent by the same means he had adopted in warning Lord Edgar and Lady Amabel of the ambush against them before the siege began; and this suggestion being approved, the scroll bearing the letter was attached to an arrow which Hugh shot from the top of the tower nearest the enemy. In order that the arrow might not be unobserved, a bunch of tow dipped in oil was fastened to the head, and away it went leaving a long trail of fire behind it. The Friar watched its flight, and by means of his far-seeing glass was able to assure Edgar that the arrow had been picked up by one of the horsemen who still remained on guard over the captive.
But this assurance was unnecessary, since the activity that followed the sending of the message to the camp of the besiegers was sufficient proof that an immediate attack was in preparation. Lights were seen flitting here and there, the shouts of the officers were heard, and in a few minutes more came a flight of stones from the mangonels.
Since all directions had been given in the castle for the placing of the garrison, they were at their posts promptly when the signals of the expected attack were given. Hugh, in order to put the men in better spirits, had told them of the failure of Luke's stratagem, and the garrison took their places upon the walls and at the loopholes, determined to show that the Count could not only be outwitted in the tricks of warfare, but could be met and overcome in the clash of arms.
Several war-engines still remained upon the ramparts, and these replied to those of the besiegers, but they were loaded with baskets of small stones for the purpose of doing all the damage possible to the Count's battle-line. The effect of this fire could not be made out since it was now dark, but there was no necessity of saving ammunition, and so the mangonels were kept at work, with gradually shortening range to adapt the fire to the supposed advance oi the Count's men.
When at last the line was near enough to be made out, it was found that the attack was directed principally against the southeastern tower. Luke had advised the Count to delay the final attack upon the keep until he had reduced the smaller towers remaining. When it was certain that this was the besiegers' object, Hugh sent all the men he could spare—some thirty archers and men armed with spears, or long poleaxes—into the threatened tower. And a part of these, five or six, clambered to its roof, which was now a ruined pile of stone and timber, so that they could fling upon the heads of the attacking party whatever stones or planks they could dislodge with crowbars. The rest of the occupants of the tower placed themselves at the loopholes, discharging their bolts and arrows into the mass of the besieging force—though with little damage because the men were covered by their shields.
Owing to Luke's inventive ability the garrison placed in this tower soon found themselves outwitted. Luke, in devising the attack, resolved to put in practice an artifice he had not yet used in this siege, though one he had seen employed with success in Palestine during the crusades. It was not Luke's fault that the siege had not proceeded more regularly and more in accordance with the recognized rules for the capture of fortifications, but rather the fault of the Count, who was impatient of all delays and could not be made to see that the more haste was the less speed, when going against a resolute foe behind a well-constructed and stoutly-defended castle. The failure of Luke's trick that day had not put the Count into any better humor with his assistant, and it was only with great difficulty that Luke had gained permission to put into practice his new device. But the Count's consent was given, though grudgingly, and so Luke had constructed during the day a new machine which may be thus described:
A great crate or open box was hung by four strong chains, fastened to its four corners, to a large beam. The other end of the beam was weighted with stones and with metal as if the whole was an enormous balance. Then a high mast was cut and into the top of it a great spike was driven, leaving a part projecting. The long beam was now pierced to admit the spike, so that the beam could move up and down or round about, swinging on the spike. Thus the whole apparatus was like an old-fashioned pair of scales. How it was to be used will be seen in telling of the attack.
While the Count's forces occupied the attention of the garrison by a feigned attack, sending flights of arrows against all exposed points, Luke was seeing to the raising of the great mast. This was set up near the southeastern tower, being put into a deep hole dug into the ground, and then made firm by poles driven in to wedge it tight. The beam having been already put over the spike upon the top of the mast it required the combined strength of many men to raise the mast and drop its end into the hole; but by means of a long rope manned by fifty or sixty of the besiegers, this was accomplished, though the garrison, seeing something of what was going forward, kept up a heavy fire upon the workers, and a number of them were struck down.
When the mast had been made firm, the crate, hanging at the end of the chains, was pulled down until it rested upon the ground. Then six or eight strong axmen entered the crate, and by pulling upon a rope attached to the other end of the beam they were raised high in air, and brought upon a level with the door of the tower that formerly opened upon the rampart of the wall that had been blown up by the Friar's mine. No sooner were these axmen swung around against this door than 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 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 against it, they were interrupted. Instead of the stone rampart that ran elsewhere along behind the battlements, here a wooden bridge was substituted. Consequently, when the rampart fell into the hands of the besiegers, it was a matter of but a few moments to burn or cut away the wooden bridge, leaving a wide gap before reaching the keep.
The fall of the southeastern tower left only the keep and the tower at the northwestern angle in possession of the defenders, and the ease with which they had taken the first small tower now urged them to an attack upon the last, hoping to confine the survivors of the garrison—now reduced to about fifty men—to the keep alone.
The Count proposed to Luke to burn down the tower they had just captured, but upon Luke's suggestion that they would soon be in possession of the whole edifice and would then have to rebuild much that they had destroyed, the Count desisted, and contented himself with putting a force of his own in charge of its defenses.
The prisoners, having been disarmed, were sent away towards the Count's camp under guard, until the Count should determine what to do with them. Although he had threatened to give no quarter, and although, if left to himself, he might have carried out his threat, Luke had pointed out to him that such unnecessary cruelty was unwise and might bring him trouble in the future. It would be to the Count's interest, if anyone questioned his right to Mortimer Castle, to show that he had acted as a knight reclaiming his own—rather than as a robber and an outlaw, putting to death soldiers who had only done their duty in fighting for their lord. The Count might not have thought of these arguments himself, but he could see that there was reason in them, and so he contented himself with disarming the soldiers and dismissing them, upon their taking an oath to take no further part in the defense of Mortimer Castle—unless they should care to enlist in his service after he had captured it!
Luke, this matter being disposed of to his satisfaction, urged upon the Count an immediate attack upon the last of the smaller towers, that which stood on the northwestern angle. So long as this was untaken, it would threaten the besiegers with a rear or flank attack while they made their advance upon the keep. Encouraged by the success of Luke's latest piece of strategy the Count once more was willing to be guided by his advice, and demanded that he should plan the attack at once.
Torches being brought, the Count and Luke sat down to devise means of taking the next stronghold. Luke did not believe that a very vigorous resistance could be offered, since the numbers of the garrison were now so reduced that it would not do to risk more of them before taking to the keep for their last stand. There was still time, he said, to put up the mast and swinging basket against the remaining tower; but Luke did not advise this, since it would be quicker to mount the rampart at the end where the burnt tower had stood, and then to put a battering-ram in action against the doorway, as they had done before.
The Count, always in favor of the quickest and most violent measures, ordered Luke to assemble the soldiers and himself went out to lead them. The men, except those few thought necessary to guard the captured tower, were drawn up in a column of six men wide, and then, marching across the front of the castle, began to clamber up the pile of ruins where had stood the burned tower. This was an inclined plane made up of the stones fallen from the tower and the end of the wall, and was not difficult to climb, so that the column was not long delayed in reaching the still uninjured portion of the western wall, along which they advanced in good order, the Count coming next after those who carried the great beam that was to serve as a ram. Except for a rather feeble fire by the archers—a dozen or so—who could find places behind the loopholes in the tower, no resistance was made by the garrison, and in a very short time, the great beam was knocking for admittance against the door. Below this portion of the rampart was the Friar's second mine, and he himself stood within the tower ready to give the signal for firing it. But first he made sure that all the defenders in the tower should be warned to take flight as soon as the whistle sounded. The Friar, however, had reasoned that the whistle would give warning to the besiegers as well, and he argued that they would be afraid of another explosion. Therefore he had instructed the soldier who stood by the fuse not to light it until he should receive verbal orders.
As soon as the ram was fairly at work, the Friar blew his whistle. Thereupon the archers and men-at-arms within the castle all left their posts, and retired along the northern rampart to the keep, crossing the wooden bridge, and closing the door into the keep behind them. They knew, of course, that the Friar and the soldier at the fuse still remained in the tower, but in order to give time for thoroughly barricading the door, it was arranged that these last two men should be drawn up by ropes when they arrived at the keep's door.
The sound of the whistle, the same sound that had preceded the other explosion, seemed to petrify the besiegers. They came to a halt, dropped the great beam and even began to retire slowly along the rampart.
Thereupon the Friar, waiting for a few moments, kept watch upon the besiegers, as well as he could make them out through the darkness. The Count, seeing nothing had followed, ordered the attack to be renewed, crying out:
"Are ye to be frightened from your work by the blast of a whistle, ye cowards? Down with the door!"
Then the Friar, slipping down the stairway, ordered the fuse to be lighted, and then with the soldier ran along the ramparts to the keep. Here were two ropes with loops at the ends, and the Friar and his companion, putting their feet through the loops and clinching to the ropes, were hauled quickly to the top of the keep and there lifted over the battlements.
Hardly were they upon the keep than the explosion took place, throwing dozens of the besiegers from the wall, splitting it in two and opening a great gap between the tower and the assaulting-party. The Count, having been near the ram, was thrown backward and almost stunned by the shock. But in spite of all the damage that was done, the moral effect of the second explosion was far less than that of the first. Although there was the same smell of sulphur, this time the Count's men were less superstitious. They had seen that, horrible as was the sight and shock of the outburst, great as was the power displayed, it had done not much more damage than often resulted from a stroke of a great battering-ram, and so they recovered themselves more quickly.
The Count, too, aided them to recover their courage, for he was more enraged than hurt by his fall, and his anger was greater than his fear. In a moment he sprang to his feet, waved his sword above his head, and shouting out his battle-cry, led his men forward to the very edge of the broken wall. Nor did he pause there, but plunged down over the fallen, tottering stones, and began to clamber up the other side.
Under such leadership all men are brave; and first one, then another, and at last all the survivors followed him, echoing his cry. Some shouted also, "Death to the Sorcerer!" and rushed forward with renewed courage. The Count, taking a heavy ax from one of his men, dealt resounding blows against the timbers of the door. His example was followed, and in a very few minutes the tough oak planks were penetrated, and it was not long before the bolts were drawn, and the bold besiegers were within the tower—the second they had captured that night.
The garrison during this interval had destroyed the bridge that joined the rampart to the doorway opening into the keep, first setting fire to it and then drawing out the heavy iron bolts that supported the bridge, and letting it fall into the courtyard. They were thus deprived of all communication with any part of the castle, and their only hope now was in the strong walls of the great keep itself. The whole base of this enormous square tower was almost solid rock, and all the openings to it were narrow, and at worst would give entrance only to narrow and crooked passages, almost as defensible as the doors themselves.
Fully aware that the last stronghold could not be taken by a sudden rush, and satisfied with what they had already accomplished, the Count and Luke resolved to make no further advance that night, and gave orders that the men, after posting guards, should make themselves comfortable for the night. The wearied soldiers were glad to obey, and wrapping themselves in their cloaks lay down wherever they could find a convenient space. Before deciding to remain in the towers, however, Luke caused a thorough search to be made, for fear the garrison had undermined the towers or set fire to them. Nothing to excite alarm being found, the Count and Luke, attended by their especial followers, rode back to their camp near the edge of the woods. They were in high spirits over the successes of the night, and began to talk confidently of capturing the keep on the morrow.
"You will remember, Count," said Luke, "that you gave me your word you would maintain me for life if we took the castle. I would not speak of it, except that the ear of victory is often deaf."
"Never fear, good Luke," answered the Count gayly. "With such a counselor at my elbow, I may yet be king of England. If Edward Longshanks should have the bad luck to lose his life in the Holy Land, who knows what may happen? And if I be king, you shall be ever at my right hand, devising mischief after your fashion."
In the keep, Edgar and his two advisers were holding counsel. Each of the three had taken the events of the night in his own way. Edgar was grieved by the loss of his followers more than by the advance of the besiegers, Hugh blamed himself for the disasters, especially for attempting to hold the smaller towers so long instead of destroying them earlier in the siege. They had cost, he said, some thirty good soldiers—nearly a third of their whole force at the beginning, and had caused the besiegers only a few hours of vigorous work. Only the Friar retained his composure. He was confident that the Count would never take the keep, he said, and said he cared not a fig for any of their losses so far, except for the men slain or captured. "Besides," he insisted, "you knew from the beginning, Lord Edgar, that the besiegers were certain to drive us into the keep, and here we are. I'll warrant the Count had no idea that he would be weeks instead of days before the walls of the Castle of the Red Lion. But weeks he has been, and, behold, he has yet the hardest nut of all to crack! Where we have lost one man, they have lost three, and, best of all, we have done our duty in defending the right, while he is a knave and a villain trying to rob an honest man of his own. If we fall, we fall in a just cause, with consciences at ease, ready to appear before our Maker. If he falls, he will die as the robber dies, struck down at the moment he is contriving only evil!"