“It’s too risky,” said Hugh. “If they capture us we must die a death to which I have no mind. Let us hurl our weapons at them, then leap.”
“So be it,” whispered Dick. “Do you aim at the captain on the left and I will take the other. Ready now! I think one creeps near to us.”
“I think so, too,” Hugh whispered back, “I felt the touch of his garments. Only he seemed to pass us from behind, which cannot be.”
The cloud passed, and once again they were bathed in silver light. It showed the men of Avignon already bending their bows; it showed Hugh and Grey Dick lifting axe and sword to hurl them. But between them and their mark it showed also a figure that they knew well, a stern and terrible figure, wearing a strange cap of red and yellow and a cape of rich, black fur.
“O God of Heaven! ‘tis Murgh the Helper,” gasped Hugh.
“Ay, Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword,” said Dick, adding quietly, “it is true I was wondering whether he would prove as good as his word. Look now, look! they see him also!”
See him they did, indeed, and for a moment there was silence on that crowded tower top where stood at least a score of men, while their fellows packed the hall and stair below by hundreds. All stared at Murgh, and Murgh stared back at them with his cold eyes. Then a voice screamed:
“Satan! Satan come from hell to guard his own! Death himself is with you! Fly, men of Avignon, fly!”
Small need was there for this command. Already, casting down their bows, those on the tower top were rushing to the mouth of the stair, and, since it was blocked with men, using their swords upon them to hew a road. Now those below, thinking that it was the English wizards who slew them, struck back.
Presently all that stair and the crowded hall below, black as the mouth of the pit, for such lights as still burned soon were swept away, rang with the screams and curses and stifled groans of the trodden down or dying. In the pitchy darkness brother smote brother, friend trampled out the life of friend, till the steep steps were piled high and the doorways blocked with dead. So hideous were the sounds indeed, that Hugh and Grey Dick crossed themselves, thinking that hell had come to Avignon, or Avignon sunk down to hell. But Murgh only folded his white-gloved hands upon his breast and smiled.