"You're good counsellors, both of you. We'll make something of this defence among us."
Harry waited until dusk before carrying out Buckley's suggestion, in order that his movements might not be seen by the enemy. Having removed several stones from the barricade, he set two men to dig a hole near the gateway, filled it with a large charge of powder, and rammed down the earth upon it, taking care that several large stones were placed near the surface. Then the barricade was restored, and the garrison rearranged, only two men being now left in the keep, the rest being ordered to take up their position in the courtyard.
These arrangements had only just been completed, and those of the dragoons who were not on watch had just turned in, when a body of men was heard approaching. The garrison was instantly called to arms, and Harry went up to a coign of safety in the battlements to await events. It was almost pitch-dark: he dimly saw black masses moving about on the farther side of the fosse; but he had resolved not to waste powder and shot by opening fire with uncertain aim, and the enemy, finding their progress unmolested, came, as his ears told him, right up to the fosse. He wished he had some means of throwing a light on the scene, but knew of nothing in the castle sufficiently inflammable for the purpose.
After a time the noise outside, strikingly in contrast with the absolute silence in the castle itself, increased; the sound was like that of men slowly moving forward with heavy loads. Harry heard the clank of stone against stone, low whispers from across the fosse, less guarded commands from a short distance farther back, where work of some kind was evidently in progress. As Harry listened, his uncertainty as to what was going on at length became intolerable, and racking his brains to devise some means of making a light he at last hit upon an idea. The cushions of the coach were probably stuffed with hay; that would burn, and if smeared with grease might give a blaze strong enough to illumine the scene for a few moments. He immediately had the cushions ripped up, and found that their stuffing was as he had guessed. There was a good stock of candles in the store-room; some of these were melted down and the grease poured into the long bundle of hay made from the cushions. The mass was carried to the top of the keep, weighted with a stone, kindled, and thrown down. It fell steadily, the flame increasing as it gained impetus, casting a yellow glare upon the walls of the castle and its surroundings. Its appearance caused a sensation among the enemy: as it reached the ground several men rushed forward and stamped it out; but it had already fulfilled its purpose, and Harry had seen all that he wished to see.
At the brink of the fosse the enemy had constructed a low parapet: a large supply of stones was stacked about thirty yards to the rear, and men were still adding to the store from the scattered debris in the fosse and at the base of the ruined walls. The intention was clear: protected by the parapet, the enemy hoped to throw their bridge across the fosse in safety. With this knowledge Harry's fear of a night-attack was removed, for if the enemy intended to assault in the darkness the parapet would be unnecessary. They had apparently not cared to risk such an enterprise. The bridge would be none too wide even in daylight for the passage of a body of men rushing pell-mell over it. The attack, then, was probably to be deferred until dawn. Having completed their task the enemy by and by drew off, and in anticipation of desperate work on the morrow Harry went to snatch a brief sleep, leaving Max as responsible head of the watch.
In the cool glimmering dawn of that June morning Harry was awakened by Max with the news that the brigands were moving from the copse. He hastened at once to his post, and saw that the parapet extended for some twenty yards along the farther side of the fosse, with a gap in the centre protected by a traverse. The enemy came forward rapidly, took up the palisades they had vainly endeavoured to throw across the fosse on the previous day, and under cover of the parapet began to rear them. As Harry had feared, musketry fire from the castle was almost wholly ineffectual: only the men on the top of the keep got an occasional chance as the besiegers incautiously moved away from their breastwork, thus exposing the upper part of their bodies. The long palisades were slowly reared on end, and lowered as slowly across the fosse, till the end nearer to Harry rested on the base of the barricade beneath the archway. When the last section was in its place, the fosse was spanned by a bridge wide enough to allow four men to cross it abreast.
Harry felt a tightening at the heart as he realized the magnitude of the task he had set himself. His force, reduced by his losses to eighteen, including himself and the two English officers, who were scarcely effectives, was outnumbered by nearly eighteen to one. And the enemy were no feather-bed warriors. Looking at their motley array, he recognized that he had to contend with some of the fiercest, most desperate, least scrupulous men of war that Europe could produce. Their nationalities were as varied as their costumes. His inexperienced eye could not distinguish their types: but he saw small men and big men, men fair, men dark, old and young; some were born dandies, as their attempts at decoration in adverse circumstances showed; others born tatterdemalions, who even in affluence would have held the decencies of costume in derision. About a hundred seemed to be regular soldiers of the Elector of Bavaria's army. Only one bond held them together: a common love of lawlessness and rapine. He felt a new respect for Aglionby; only a man of some moral force, however perverted, could have imposed his leadership on such a heterogeneous crew.
At the moment Aglionby was in consultation with a few others at some distance, and out of range of the clumsy firearms of those days. Among the little group Harry singled out two men as of more consequence than the rest: a tall fellow matching the captain in height and bulk, wearing a red sash—the same man he had seen approaching the inn,—and a small active man in whose cap a peacock's feather was jauntily stuck. They were evidently discussing with great animation their plan of attack.
As nearly as Harry could judge, about a hundred men were crouching behind the parapet. A body nearly two hundred strong was held in reserve near the leaders. Against these Harry had five men in the gateway, three at the summit of the keep, three half-way up, and Max as lieutenant and aide-de-camp.
Suddenly the group of leaders parted, a bugle rang out, and simultaneously with a fierce discharge of musketry from the parapet two men dashed forward from each end of the gap on to the bridge. At a second's interval these were followed by another four, while several men rushed from the reserve towards the far end of the parapet to fill their places. Three fell under the first volley from the defenders, but the rest sprang forward unhurt, and gaining the other side began to clamber up the barricade, to tear down the stones, or, thrusting their muskets through the loopholes, to discharge them hap-hazard at the garrison within. But three of the defenders of the gate had held their fire, and, boldly mounting a low platform of stones just inside the barricade, they discharged their pieces point-blank into the mass of men now crowding with shouts across the bridge. The brigands, Harry noticed, were headed by the big red-sashed Croatian he had seen in consultation with Aglionby. They recoiled but for a second, then surged forward again, and, yelling with fury, hurled themselves against the breastwork. Eugene's troopers, led by Max, held their ground in silence, save for a muttered exclamation when one of their adversaries fell reeling into the fosse.