A minute later she joined him on the farther bank of the moat. “Run!” she said. “Run for your life; there’s death behind!”
He obeyed, but Emlyn turned and screamed, till, hearing her through the gale, all the guard hurried up the towers, flashing lanterns, to see what passed.
“Storm! storm!” she cried. “Up with the ladders! For the King and Harflete! Storm! storm!”
Then she too turned and fled.
CHAPTER XVIII
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Through the black night sudden and red there shot a sheet of fire illumining all things as lightning does. Above the roaring of the gale there echoed a dull and heavy noise like to that of muffled thunder. Then after a moment’s pause and silence the sky rained stones, and with them the limbs of men.
“The gateway’s gone,” shouted a great voice, it was that of Bolle. “Out with the ladders!”
Men who were waiting ran up with them and thrust them, four in all, athwart the moat. By the planks that were lashed along their staves they scrambled across and over the piles of shattered masonry into the courtyard beyond where none waited them, for all who watched here were dead or maimed.