All at once a sheet of flame leaped up through the blackness from the beacon-tower; and beneath its blood-red glare every feature of that wild scene started into terrible distinctness—the dark towers and battlements of the grim old fortress, the anxious watchers that crowded them, the dim expanse of sea behind, the whirl of furious faces and struggling arms and flashing weapons that filled the causeway, the black morass on either side, and the wild waste of dreary moor beyond all—a picture which no one who saw it ever forgot.
The light revealed that the battle was going against France; for though the French fought as bravely as men could do, all their valour was rendered vain by the complete surprise, the suddenness and fury of the attack, the superiority of prepared men to unprepared ones, and the narrowness of the causeway, which made their greater numbers not only useless, but harmful. Already they were beginning to recoil: but their stern leader, De Chargny, furious at being thus tricked and baffled, fought like a tiger, and, aided by the terrible arm of Eustace de Ribeaumont, still bore up the war.
Just as the beacon flamed up, Sir Eustace, while hacking his way through that living jungle like a woodman slashing down brushwood, suddenly came face to face with a tall man in plain armour, whose prowess had already made him remarked alike by friend and foe, though he bore neither badge nor blazon.
“To me, Sir Eustace!” cried the stranger; “I would fain try my strength with thine.”
“I know thee not,” replied Sir Eustace, “but all such guests are welcome to De Ribeaumont. Come on, and let God send the victory as He will.”
Without another word the two closed, and for some moments thrust and parry, stroke and guard, followed each other as thunder follows lightning. At last the French sword fell like a thunderbolt on the stranger’s crest, beating him down on his knee; but ere Sir Eustace could second his blow, the other sprang lightly up once more.
“St. Denis! thou art a good knight!” cried the French hero, with all the chivalrous admiration of one brave man for another. “Wilt thou yield thee to my mercy?”
“‘Yield’ is a word that I know not,” said the unknown, simply; and to it they went again like giants.
But a rush of fighting men parted them, and the stranger, reeling beneath another tremendous blow, would have been thrust off the causeway to die in the foul morass below, had not a strong arm upheld him, while a gruff voice said in his ear—
“Hold up, your worship, and to it again; yon Frenchman is a good blade, but you will match him yet.”