An hour's rest was sufficient to restore every exhausted power to the limbs of the determined followers of Wallace; and, as the morning dawned, the sentinels on the ramparts of the town were not only surprised to see a host below, but that (by the most indefatigable labor, and a silence like death) had not merely passed the ditch, but having gained the counterscarp, had fixed their movable towers, and were at that instant overlooking the highest bastions. The mangonels and petraries, and other implements for battering walls, and the ballista, with every efficient means of throwing missive weapons, were ready to discharge their artillery upon the heads of the beseiged.
At a sight so unexpected, which seemed to have arisen out of the earth like an exhalation (with such muteness and expedition had the Scottish operations been carried on), the Southrons, struck with dread, fled a moment from the walls; but immediately recovering their presence of mind, they returned, and discharged a cloud of arrows upon their assailants. A messenger, meanwhile, was sent into the citadel to apprise De Valence and the Governor Cressingham of the assault. The interior gates now sent forth thousands to the walls; but in proportion to the numbers which approached, the greater was the harvest of death prepared for the terrible arm of Wallace, whose tremendous war wolves throwing prodigious stones, and lighter springalls, casting forth brazen darts, swept away file after file of the reinforcements. It grieved the noble heart of the Scottish commander to see so many valiant men urged to inevitable destruction; but still they advanced, and that his own might be preserved they must fall. To shorten the bloody contest, his direful weapons were worked with redoubled energy; and so mortal a shower fell that the heavens seemed to rain iron. The crushed and stricken enemy, shrinking under the mighty tempest, forsook their ground.
The ramparts deserted, Wallace sprung from his tower upon the walls. At that moment De Valence opened one of the gates; and, at the head of a formidable body, charged the nearest Scots. A good soldier is never taken unawares, and Murray and Graham were prepared to receive him. Furiously driving him to a retrograde motion, they forced him back into the town. But there all was confusion. Wallace, with his resolute followers, had already put Cressingham and his legions to flight; and, closely pursued by Kirkpatrick, they threw themselves into the castle. Meanwhile, the victorious Wallace surrounded the amazed De Valence, who, caught in double toils, called to his men to fight for their king, and neither give nor take quarter.
The brave fellows too strictly obeyed; and while they fell on all sides, he supported them with a courage which horror of Wallace's vengeance for his grandfather's death, and the attempt on his own life in the hall at Dumbarton, rendered desperate. At last he encountered the conquering chief, arm to arm. Great was the dismay of De Valence at this meeting; but as death was now all he saw before him, he resolved, if he must die, that the soul of his enemy should attend him to the other world.
He fought, not with the steady valor of a warrior determined to vanquish or die; but with the fury of despair, with the violence of a hyena, thirsting for the blood of his opponent. Drunk with rage, he made a desperate plunge at the heart of Wallace—a plunge, armed with execrations, and all his strength; but his sword missed its aim, and entered the side of a youth, who at that moment had thrown himself before his general. Wallace saw where the deadly blow fell; and instantly closing on the earl—with a vengeance in his eyes, which reminded his now determined victim of the horrid vision he had seen in the burning Barns of Ayr—with one grasp of his arm, the incensed chief hurled him to the ground; and setting his foot upon his breast, would have buried his dagger there, had not De Valence dropped his uplifted sword, and with horror in every feature, raised his clasped hands in speechless supplication.
Wallace suspended the blow; and De Valence exclaimed: "My life! this once again, gallant Wallace! by your hopes of heaven, grant me mercy!"
Wallace looked on the trembling recreant with a glare, which, had he possessed the soul of a man, would have made him grasp at death, rather than deserve a second. "And hast thou escaped me again?" cried Wallace. Then turning his indignant eyes from the abject earl to his bleeding friend-"I yield him his life, Edwin, and you, perhaps, are slain?"
"Forget not our own bright principle to avenge me," said Edwin, as brightly smiling; "he has only wounded me. But you are safe, and I hardly feel a smart."
Wallace replaced his dagger in his girdle. "Rise, Lord de Valence; it is my honor, not my will, that grants your life. You threw away your arms! I cannot strike even a murderer who bares his breast. I give you that mercy you denied to nineteen unoffending, defenseless old men, whose hoary heads your ruthless ax brought with blood to the ground. Let memory be the sword I have withheld!"
While he spoke, De Valence had risen, and stood, conscience-stricken, before the majestic mien of Wallace. There was something in this denunciation that sounded like the irreversible decree of a divinity; and the condemned wretch quaked beneath the threat, while he panted for revenge.