And now the fight grew fierce and terrible; for all knew that on this last struggle hung the fate of the besieged town, and every man fought as if the might of the whole host were in his single arm. Had not Lancaster’s men been spent with long marching and want of sleep, it would have gone hard with Du Guesclin’s handful of heroes; and even as it was, all their valour barely sufficed to bear up against the threefold odds that beset them. The Wolf and his band (Bertrand’s lifeguard all through that fearful night) stood like an iron wall between the tide of assault and the precious waggons; but, man on man, the devoted band fell before their swarming assailants, and as their ranks thinned, Du Guesclin’s men began to give way in turn, while the English pressed on with shouts of victory.
Driven to desperation, Bertrand plunged headlong into the living sea of fierce faces and tossing weapons, dealing death at every blow. But, in that maddening hurly-burly, few saw the movement, and fewer still followed it; and in a moment he was hemmed in on every side, and not one of his own men near but Huon and the Wolf.
Suddenly Bertrand’s quick ear caught, amid all that infernal din, a dull groan behind him, and he turned just in time to see the Wolf drop his axe and fall to the earth!
Quick as thought, Du Guesclin clutched the fainting man, and dragged him up by main force on to his own steed; and then he turned so fiercely on his foes that for an instant his single arm checked the whole tide of battle.
“Huon!” he shouted, “stand by me, as thou art true knight and Christian man.”
Huon answered nobly to the call, striking right and left with the force of a giant, and never once in vain. But the English closed sternly round them, and all seemed over with the gallant pair, when the fortune of this strange fight turned once more.
Till then old De Penhoën had warily kept the rest of his men well in hand; but now he flung caution to the winds, and, hastily mustering every soldier within the walls, burst forth like a whirlwind on the disordered English just as they thought the victory won!
In a moment the ring of savage faces and cruel spears that shut in Du Guesclin and Huon melted away like a dream, and a gruff voice said behind them—
“Cheer up, good Sir Bertrand; thou hast stood at bay like a stag of ten, and yon English wolves shall not have thee!”
In fact, this sudden charge of fresh men on wearied ones decided the battle. Confounded by so many successive attacks, the English thought themselves assailed by a new army, and gave way once more; and ere they could rally again, the work was done.