He led the way back, the men literally staggering after him, half suffocated as they had been by the fumes of the powder, the explosion having been so near their prison. But they revived moment by moment in the pure air, and growing excited by the sounds that reached them from the court-yard, they followed on along the lower passages till they reached the crypt of the south-west tower, passed on to the stairway at the base of the gate tower, and ascended unchallenged to the great gate-way, where Roy dashed into the untenanted guard-room, and the men rapidly armed themselves with weapons from the racks.
“Ready?” said Roy, in a whisper.
“Yes,” came in a deep, excited growl.
“Back, then,” cried Roy, “and we’ll attack them in the rear.”
He ranged his men in the shadow, the combatants being wildly engaged amid a blaze of light, which prevented the movements of Roy’s little party being seen; and he was about to lead them back through the great corridor to where they could dash out suddenly and make their diversion in the rear, when Ben suddenly laid his hand upon the boy’s arm, and ran to one of the narrow slits of windows in the guard-room.
“Trampling of horses,” he whispered, as he peered out, the glow upward now lighting the other side of the moat. “General’s men coming back, sir. Take us up into the portcullis-room, and we must defend that and keep it and the furnace-chamber to the death. They must not come in.”
Roy grasped the position, knowing well enough that as soon as the defenders knew of the return of their friends, they would admit them, and the Cavaliers would suffer defeat.
Giving the word, he dashed up the spiral followed by his men, and as they stood ready to defend the place to the last, and keep bridge and portcullis as they were, he stepped up into the window and thrust out his head, to see dimly a body of about fifty horsemen, who galloped up to the edge of the moat.
“Halt!” shouted their leader. “No good: impossible. We must ride round, dismount, and join Royland through the breach. Forward!”
“Halt!” shrieked Roy with all his force in his cry, and then in a voice he did not know as his own, he yelled out, “Royland! Royland! God save the king!”