From the parapet of the keep Max shouted that he saw a large troop of horse not a mile away, galloping amain towards the castle.
"Men, with me!" cried Harry.
Twelve dragoons sprang through the coach after him, and with haste helped him to draw the planks of the bridge within the archway. They had completed their task save for the last plank when the foremost files of the enemy galloped up, checking their horses at the very brink when they saw the unbridged gap before them; no horse could cross on a two-foot plank. Harry withdrew his men just in time to escape the bullets fired at them by the baulked and enraged brigands. At the last moment he himself stooped, lifted the end of the plank, and hurled it into the fosse. A slug whizzed past his head; he dashed back under the archway, through the coach, breathless but safe.
As he stepped through the coach into the courtyard he heard a groan. His wounded men had been carried into the keep; at the moment no trooper was near. Bending down, he looked beneath the coach, and saw the landlord lying flat on his face, his head buried in his arms, groaning dismally.
"Are you hit, landlord?" asked Harry.
"Lord have mercy on my soul!" groaned the man.
"Never mind your soul; are your limbs sound? Come out, and let me look at you."
A palpitating mass crawled from beneath the vehicle. Dirty, chap-fallen, and dishevelled, but unhurt, the landlord stood in trembling and pitiful cowardice.
"Where are you hurt? Come, I've no time to waste. Why," he added, as he turned the man round and examined him, "you haven't a scratch. You're a pretty consort of ruffians! Get away into the keep and make yourself useful, or——"
The man scrambled away in limp despair, and Harry smiled grimly as he went about his pressing task.