CHAPTER VI
Vengeance
MEANWHILE Charles’s friends had been scouring the country far and wide, and wherever they went crying vengeance, and that not vainly. A bevy of thirty knights at once took up arms and swore they would not lay them down until they had washed them in the blood of the assassins, and—ominous note of warning—these men were all of them, or nearly all of them, partisans of the Erembalds. By common consent they chose Gervais Van Praet for their chief, and at once began to lay waste and plunder the lands and property of those who would not join them. Thus, gaining fresh recruits wherever they went, the little band rapidly grew into a vast army. Soon the town and fortress of Ravenschoot—a mighty stronghold of the Karls which, through some unaccountable blunder, had been left ungarrisoned—went up in flames; by the end of the week the smouldering embers of his brother Wulfric’s palace, not a stone’s throw from Bruges, warned Bertulph that the enemy was at his gates, and there was no sign of the reinforcements which William of Löo, who was perhaps in daily communication with the Provost, had promised to send from Ypres. Next morning, therefore, his nephews made a sortie beyond the ramparts, in the hope of putting the insurgents to flight, but after no little hard fighting they were smitten hip and thigh and forced to lead their shattered troops back to the city.
The burghers, however, still loyal to the cause of their châtelain, had been hard at work night and day strengthening the fortifications—old men, women and children, even the clergy themselves, had lent a willing hand—and the town was said to be impregnable. Perhaps it was, but for all that, on Wednesday the 9th of March, the enemy walked in at the Sablon gate. There was a traitor within the camp. May be one of the provost’s own household. It was the hour of the evening meal, and so confident were the townsfolk in the strength of their walls that they remained quietly seated at table whilst the Isegrins[11] were marching through their streets, and the insurgents were already in the heart of the city before the news of their advent had reached Bertulph’s palace. The Erembalds then were had at an advantage, and though they fought bravely—they always fought bravely—after a long and bloody conflict, the chief shock of which was on the Pont de l’Ane Aveugle, they were at last forced to retire to the Bourg, hoping against hope that they would be able to hold out until William of Löo should arrive.
As for the burghers, when they saw how the land lay, and that the insurgents would probably prove victorious, they either joined hands with them or endeavoured to maintain a neutral attitude, awaiting the issue of events—a prudent policy which their descendants have not unfrequently followed. Some ten days after the night of the great betrayal, the Isegrins approached their opponents with overtures of peace—offers of life and liberty for all within the beleaguered fortress who averred their innocence, if only they would come forth and prove it.