The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 31

"And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hands of others! Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that you are not marked by the archers beneath--look out once more and tell me if they yet advance to the storm."

With patient courage, Rebecca again took post at the lattice.

"What dost thou see?" demanded the wounded knight.

"Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes and hide the bowmen who shoot them."

"That cannot endure," remarked Ivanhoe. "If they press not on to carry the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the sable knight and see how he bears himself, for as the leader is, so will his followers be."

"I see him not," said Rebecca.

"Foul craven!" exclaimed Ivanhoe; "does he blench from the helm when the wind blows highest?"

"He blenches not! he blenches not!" cried Rebecca. "I see him now; he heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes.

His high black plume floats over the throng, like a raven over the field of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers--they rush in--they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the pa.s.s is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. Have mercy, G.o.d!"

She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a sight so terrible.

"Look forth again, Rebecca," urged Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her retiring; "the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are now fighting hand to hand. Look again; there is less danger."

Rebecca again looked forth and almost immediately exclaimed: "Holy prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to hand in the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the progress of the strife." She then uttered a loud shriek, "He is down! he is down!"

"Who is down?" cried Ivanhoe; "tell me which has fallen?"

"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then shouted with joyful eagerness, "But no--the name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed!--he is on foot again and fights as if there were twenty men's strength in his single arm. His sword is broken--he s.n.a.t.c.hes an ax from a yeoman--he presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow. The giant stoops and totters like an oak under the steel of a woodsman--he falls--he falls!"

"Front-de-Boeuf?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"Front-de-Boeuf!" answered the Jewess. "His men rush to the rescue, headed by the haughty Templar--their united force compels the champion to pause--they drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."

"The a.s.sailants have won the barriers, have they not?" Ivanhoe eagerly queried.

"They have! they have!" answered Rebecca; "and they press the besieged hard on the outer wall. Some plant ladders, some swarm like bees and endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other. Down go stones, beams, and trunks of trees on their heads, and as fast as they bear the wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places. Great G.o.d! hast thou given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren!"

"Think not of that," said Ivanhoe. "This is no time for such thoughts.

Who yield--who push their way?"

"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged have the better."

"Saint George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?"

"No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly--the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax--the thundering blows he deals you may hear above all the din of the battle. Stones and beams are hailed down on the bold champion--he regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers!"

"By Saint John of Acre," cried Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a deed!"

"The postern-gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes--it is splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won! Oh, G.o.d! they hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them into the moat--men, if ye indeed be men, spare them that can resist no longer!"

"The bridge--the bridge which communicates with the castle--have they won that pa.s.s?"

"No," replied Rebecca. "The Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed--few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle--the shrieks and cries you hear tell the fate of the others! Alas! I see it is more difficult to look on victory than on battle."

"What do they now, maiden?" asked Ivanhoe. "Look forth yet again; this is no time to faint at bloodshed."

"It is over for the time," answered Rebecca. "Our friends strengthen themselves within the outwork which they have mastered; it affords them so good a shelter from the foeman's shot that the garrison only bestow a few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if to disquiet rather than to injure them."

"Our friends," said Wilfred, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so gloriously begun and so happily attained. Oh, no! I will put my faith in the good knight whose ax hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron."

VI

During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the besiegers, the Black Knight was employed in causing to be constructed a sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some time.

When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers: "It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending in the west, and I may not tarry for another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if the hors.e.m.e.n do not come upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of you go to Locksley and bid him commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move forward as if about to a.s.sault it; while you, true Englishmen, stand by me and be ready to thrust the raft end-long over the moat whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and aid me to burst yon sally-port in the main wall of the castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill-armed, do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears and quell with your shot whoever shall appear upon the rampant. n.o.ble Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those that remain?"

"Not so," answered the Saxon. "Lead I cannot, but my posterity curse me in my grave if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point the way!"

"Yet, bethink thee, n.o.ble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither hauberk nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, [v]target, and sword."

"The better," replied Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these walls. And--forgive the boast, sir knight--thou shalt this day see the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever you beheld the steel corslet of a Norman warrior."

"In the name of G.o.d, then," said the knight, "fling open the door and launch the floating bridge!"

The portal which led from the inner wall of the barbican, now held by the besiegers, to the moat and corresponded with a sally-port in the main wall of the castle was suddenly opened. The temporary bridge was immediately thrust forward and extended its length between the castle and outwork, forming a slippery and precarious pa.s.sage for two men abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw himself upon the bridge and reached the opposite sh.o.r.e. Here he began to thunder with his ax on the gate of the castle, protected in part from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving the [v]counterpoise still attached to the upper part of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat.

The others retreated back into the barbican.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [See page 323]

He Began to Thunder on the Gate]

The situation of Cedric and the Black Knight was now truly dangerous and would have been still more so but for the constancy of the archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows on the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles, which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment.

"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye call yourselves cross-bowmen and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the battlement, an better may not be. Get pick-ax and levers and down with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone-carved work that projected from the parapet.

At this moment Locksley whipped up the courage of his men.

"Saint George for England!" he cried. "To the charge, bold yeomen! Why leave ye the good knight and n.o.ble Cedric to storm the pa.s.s alone? Make in, yeomen! The castle is taken. Think of honor; think of spoil. One effort and the place is ours."

With that he bent his good bow and sent a shaft right through the breast of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he had heaved up and loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his headpiece, he dropped from the battlement into the moat a dead man. The men-at-arms were daunted, for no armor seemed proof against the shot of this tremendous archer.

"Do you give ground, base knaves?" cried De Bracy. "[v]_Mountjoy Saint Dennis_! Give me the lever."

s.n.a.t.c.hing it up, he again a.s.sailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost a.s.sailants, but also to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw the danger, and the boldest, even the stout friar himself, avoided setting a foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armor of proof.

"Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley; "had English smith forged it, these arrows had gone through it as if it had been silk." He then began to call out: "Comrades! friends! n.o.ble Cedric! bear back and let the ruin fall."

His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the Black Knight himself occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned twenty war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprang forward on the planked bridge to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with him. But his warning would have come too late; the ma.s.sive pinnacle already tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his ear.

"All is lost, De Bracy; the castle burns."