It was not long before the weight of numbers began to tell; portions of the barricade had been pulled down; the gallant defenders were hard beset. Calling to the two men in the keep, Harry rushed down and flung himself into the fray, shouting to Max to go to the top of the keep and carry out orders he had previously received. Max hurried away, and Harry lost count of time as he engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight across the fast crumbling barricade. Standing upon their platform the defenders still had the advantage of position, and Harry and his two men being fresh, the enemy for some few minutes gained but little. Then, as the attackers were once more beginning to make headway, there was a terrible crash on the bridge. The fighting ceased as by magic; all was still. A huge mass of stone, swung outwards from the top of the keep, had broken with terrific force through the light palisades, leaving only one section intact, and carrying with it into the fosse nearly a dozen men. The survivors on the castle side, seeing themselves almost cut off, were seized with panic and made a simultaneous rush for safety, the big Croatian pushing his weaker and wounded comrades into the fosse in his reckless haste to regain the opposite bank.
Harry gave a gasp of thankfulness and relief,—and turned to see Fanshawe and Buckley, who, weak as they were, had come up unknown to him towards the close of the fight to bear a hand.
"Thank you, old fellow!" he said to Fanshawe, "we have scored one."
But he turned again, and, leaning on the barricade, anxiously scanned the field. The leaders of the enemy were once more in earnest consultation. They must have lost at least twenty men in the short sharp struggle; but the defeat seemed only to have enraged them. During the first part of the fight Max had been full in their view, and as he still wore the prince's costume the brigands were no doubt convinced that Eugene himself was the head and front of the defence, and were buoyed up by the hope of capturing him. For some minutes the discussion among the leaders continued; then, as having come to a decision, they moved off with their men towards the copse, and, save for half a dozen who remained to watch the castle, were seen no more for some hours.
Their absence gave Harry an opportunity of attending to his wounded. He found that three were somewhat seriously hurt, and one was rendered hors de combat. His total force was now reduced to fourteen, including himself, his brother officers, and the two men on guard.
Towards mid-day, under a broiling sun, the enemy again appeared. This time, in addition to palisades freshly made, they carried with them a number of rough frameworks penthouse shaped, fashioned from stout saplings bound together, like the bridge, with withies from the marsh. Evidently there was a man of resource among them. Each of the frames formed a kind of wooden tent, two yards long, some three to four wide, and six feet high, requiring the united strength of half a dozen men to carry. But there was no lack of men, and the bearers, protected from bullets from above by the roof of these shelters, came safely almost to the edge of the fosse. The new palisades were thrown across, but this time the materials were stronger. One of the sheds, its end closed with light logs, was rushed across the bridge by a dozen strong men. A second was joined to it, then a third, and so on until a continuous corridor stretched across the fosse. The lashings holding the logs together at the inner end being cut, from out of this testudo sprang brigand after brigand, who came impetuously up to the barricade and instantly engaged the defenders in a furious hand-to-hand combat. Max, whose marksmanship with his huge sling had been so effective before, hurled stone after stone down upon the testudo, but they were turned off by the sloping roof, and though the bridge creaked and groaned under the impact it did not give way.
It was fortunate for the defenders that only a few men at a time could make their way through the shed, and the space at the end was too narrow to allow of a great accession of numbers unless the foremost could scale the barricade. The enemy had again lost heavily at their first onset, but as soon as one man fell his place was supplied, and no respite was given to the little band within. Shoulder to shoulder Eugene's men formed a wall of steel across the gateway: again and again they beat back the enemy at the breastwork. But against such odds they could not hope to escape unscathed; there were no reserves; and of the enemy there was still a host ready and eager to fill the gaps. One man and then another of the troopers fell, this one to rise no more, that to crawl away and stanch his wound. Seven men were now all that was left of the fighting line, and when Fanshawe and Buckley came up and insisted on sharing their comrades' peril, Harry felt that he dared no longer delay the playing of what might prove his last card. With a word to Max to keep up the fight, he slipped for a moment out of the press, struck a flint, kindled some tinder he had kept in readiness, and then, shouting to his men to make for the keep, and waiting till they had begun to run, he lit the train.
At the last moment a trooper fell, so badly hurt that he could not move. Harry sprang forward, caught the man by the belt, and dragged him into the courtyard towards the keep. The enemy, astonished at the sudden flight of the garrison, hesitated for a moment before charging across the obstacle which so far had held them off. Then, just as they leapt forward over the barricade, now an irregular heap of stones, there was a blinding flash behind them, and a deafening roar. The ground rocked; fragments of the dilapidated walls fell inwards and outwards; a dense cloud of dust and smoke bellied over the scene, and the air was rent by the cries of men in agony.
Disregarding the falling stone-work, Harry ran forward to the archway, his eyes smarting with the fumes. As the cloud gradually settled, he saw crowds of the enemy huddled together on the farther side of the fosse, their eyes aghast intently fixed on the archway. But of the bridge, and the sheds, and the stream of men who a minute before had been pressing forward exultantly across the fosse, not a vestige remained. Wood and men lay an indistinguishable mass at the bottom.
CHAPTER XXII