"I do not wish to risk my troops in that forest, and fall into another ambush like the one of the defile!" cries Neroweg. "The day is drawing to its close. We shall encamp to-night in the midst of the bare hills where we now are, and where no surprise is to be feared."
"Here are your scouts back," observes the monk to the Frankish chief. "Interrogate them before you make up your mind definitely."
"Neroweg," reports one of the riders who had scouted to the edge of the marsh, "as far as the eye reaches, nothing is seen on the marsh; there is no sign of any men; there is not a boat in sight. On the shores there is not a single hut, and there is no evidence of any entrenchment."
Impatient to judge by himself of the nature of the field, the Frankish chief, followed by the monk, immediately rides forward and reaches the top of the hill shortly before occupied by the scouts. From the eminence Neroweg beholds a vast expanse of marshy ground in whose numerous pools of stagnant water the last rays of the sinking sun are mirrored. The jetty, covered with sward and lined with a thick fringe of reeds, reaches clear to the other side, and is lost on the edge of the forest. "There is not the slightest fear of an ambush in crossing this solitude," says Neroweg with visible mental relief. "The march across can only take up half an hour, at the most."
"We have about an hour more of daylight left us," observes the monk. "The forest you see yonder is called the forest of Cardik. It stretches far away to the right and left of the marsh, seeing that, towards the west, it reaches the borders of the Armorican Sea. But that portion of the forest that faces the jetty is at the utmost a quarter of a league long. We could easily put it behind us before night, and we would then be on the moor of Kennor, an immense plain where you could encamp in absolute security. To-morrow at daybreak if it should please you, we can ride back into the forest and rummage at the foot of the druid stones for the treasures hidden there by the Bretons. Glory to your arms, and may the booty be large!"
After a few minutes of hesitation, Neroweg, tempted by cupidity, sends a man of his escort to give to his troops the order to march and traverse the jetty, a narrow walk of about three feet wide, perfectly even, covered with thin grass, and lying in plain view from one end to the other. Neroweg feels easy in mind. Nevertheless, remembering the rocks of Glen-Clan, he prudently orders several horsemen to precede the troops by about a hundred paces. Marching behind their chief, Neroweg's troops begin to defile along the jetty, which soon is covered with soldiers from end to end. Massed from the foot to the top of the hill, behind the advancing column, are the last detachments of Neroweg's army. They break ranks as fast as it is their turn to enter upon the passage.
Suddenly, from the midst of the clumps of reeds that rise at irregular intervals along the length of the tongue of land, the cry of night-birds goes up—cries identical with those that had resounded from the summits of Glen-Clan. Upon the signal, the muffled sounds of rapid hatchet strokes are heard. They teem to be the answer given to the cries of the night-birds. Instantly the seemingly solid walk sinks at scores of places under the feet of the marching soldiers. Woe is those who happen to find themselves over these hidden traps, that are constructed of wooden beams and strong chains concealed under a layer of sward! The scheme, devised by Vortigern, proves successful. The movable bridges can, at will, either support the weight of the troops that march over them, or tip over under their tread, by the dexterous knocking from under the loose boards the wooden pegs that are their only support.
Plunged in the water up to their necks, Vortigern and a large number of stout-hearted men of his tribe have held themselves motionless, mute and invisible in the center of the clumps of reeds that border the jetty near each of the traps. When the jetty is entirely covered with Frankish soldiers, the hatchets are, at a signal, plied with energy; the pegs drop out; and the passage is suddenly cut up by scores of gaps twenty feet wide. Pell-mell foot soldiers, cavalrymen and their horses tumble to the bottom of these suddenly opened ditches, and are received thereupon by the sharp points of piles providently sunk at the bottom.
At the sight of these death-dealing traps, suddenly gaping before them at their feet, and at the sound of the wild cries and imprecations uttered by the wounded and by those who are being pushed forward into the abysses by the crowding ranks behind, a tremendous disorder, followed by a panic, spreads among the Franks. Fearing the path to be everywhere undermined, the soldiers crowd back and forward upon one another in a frenzy of despair. The frightened horses rear, tumble down, or rush furiously into the marsh where they vanish together with their riders. The confusion and rout being at its height, the Bretons rise from their places of concealment among the reeds, and hurl promiscuously a shower of bolts upon the confused heaps of soldiers, now rendered insane with fear, and in their panic either trampling upon one another, or themselves being trampled upon by their uncontrollable steeds. Other war-crys respond from a distance to the war-cries struck up by Vortigern and his men. A troop of Bretons issues from the forest and ranks itself in battle array at the border of the marsh ready to dispute the passage if the Franks dare to attempt it The sight of these fresh foes carries the panic of Neroweg's troops to its acme. Instead of marching onward towards the edge of the forest, the front rank faces about, anxious only to join the body of the army that still finds itself massed at the entrance of the fatal causeway. The rush is effected with such fury that the deep trenches are speedily filled with the bodies of a mass of wounded, dead and dying warriors. The heaped-up corpses soon serve as a bridge to the fleeing Franks, whose rear the Breton bolts assail unpityingly. At the spectacle of the routed Franks, Vortigern and his braves strike up anew the war song with which they had assailed the ears of the distracted Franks at the defile of Glen-Clan:
| "This morning we asked: |
| 'How many are there of these Franks? |
| How many are there of these barbarians?' |
| This evening we say: |
| 'How many were there of these Franks? |
| How many were there of these barbarians?' |
| Victory and Glory to Hesus!" |