One afternoon they came in sight of a strongly fortified town; and a whisper went through the little army that this was a disaffected place. But upon coming nearer they saw that the great gate stood open, and the towers that flanked it on each side were manned with a single sentinel apiece. So the advancing force somewhat broke their array and marched carelessly.
When they were within a furlong, the drawbridge across the moat rose slowly and creaking till it stood vertical against the fort; and the very moment it settled, into this warlike attitude, down rattled the portcullis at the gate, and the towers and curtains bristled with lances and crossbows.
A stern hum ran through the front rank and spread to the rear.
"Halt!" cried their leader. The word went down the line, and they halted. "Herald to the gate!"
A herald spurred out of the ranks, and halting twenty yards from the gate, raised his bugle with his herald's flag hanging down round it, and blew a summons. A tall figure in brazen armor appeared over the gate. A few fiery words passed between him and the herald, which were not audible; but their import was clear, for the herald blew a single keen and threatening note at the walls, and came galloping back with war in his face.
The leader moved out of the line to meet him, and their heads had not been together two seconds ere he turned in his saddle and shouted, "Pioneers, to the van!" and in a moment hedges were leveled, and the force took the field and encamped just out of shot from the walls; and away went mounted officers flying south, east, and west, to the friendly towns, for catapults, palisades, mantelets, raw hides, tar barrels, carpenters, provisions, and all the materials for a siege.
The besiegers encamped a furlong from the walls, and made roads; kept their pikemen in camp ready for an assault when practicable; and sent forward their sappers, pioneers, catapultiers, and crossbowmen. These opened a siege by filling the moat and mining, or breaching the wall, etc. And as much of their work had to be done under close fire of arrows, quarrels, bolts, stones, and little rocks, the above artists "had need of a hundred eyes," and acted in concert with a vigilance, and an amount of individual intelligence, daring, and skill that made a siege very interesting, and even amusing,—to lookers-on.
The first thing they did was to advance their carpenters behind rolling mantelets, and to erect a stockade high and strong on the very edge of the moat. Some lives were lost at this, but not many; for a strong force of crossbowmen, including Denys, rolled their mantelets [1] up and shot over the workmen's heads at every besieged person who showed his nose, and at every loophole, arrow slit, or other aperture, which commanded the particular spot the carpenters happened to be upon. Covered by their condensed fire, these soon raised a high palisade between them and the ordinary missiles from the walls.
But the besieged expected this, and ran out at night their hoards or wooden penthouses on the top of the curtains. The curtains were built with square holes near the top to receive the beams that supported these structures, the true defense of mediæval forts, from which the besieged delivered their missiles with far more freedom and variety of range than they could shoot through the oblique but immovable loopholes of the curtain. On this the besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones at these wood works and battering them to pieces. At the same time they built a triangular wooden tower as high as the curtain, and kept it ready for use, and just out of shot.