He rode a huge grey Flemish horse, dark as basalt and as smooth—very lightly trapped with red leather linked with silver gilt—that he managed as well as a man can. He had always been renowned for his consummate horsemanship, and this great beast, that had taken two footmen to hold in before he mounted, he held delicately with one hand on the reins with such a perfect control, that the creature was utterly motionless on the narrow ledge of slippery rock.
The hot air was full of different distant and subdued sounds—the rattle of the guns, the clink of the matchlocks striking the cobbles of the town below, the tramp of feet, the neighing of horses, and, occasionally, the crowing of a cock on some farm outside Namur.
The King sat with his reins loose, holding in his right hand his baton that he rested against his hip. He was intently watching the English trenches.
The clocks of the churches in Namur struck one; instantly a loud report and a jet of flame came from the trenches below; two barrels of gunpowder had been blown up as a signal for the attack.
Before the smoke had cleared, all the minor sounds were silenced by the steady beat of drums and kettledrums, and the King perceived the Grenadiers marching from behind their defences and earthworks steadily towards the ramparts of Namur—these were the men of Cutt's own regiment. They were immediately followed by the four new battalions. They came on steadily, in good order, with their bright, unspoilt colours in their midst, their colonels riding before them. The King could discern the slender figure of John Cutts marching on foot before the Grenadiers with his drawn sword in his hand.
There was no sign from the castle. The English leapt, man after man, the last deep trench of their own earthworks, and suddenly, at a word from their leader, whose voice came faintly to the King's ears, broke into a run and dashed up the slope at the foot of the rock, and full at the first wall of the French fortifications.
Instantly the batteries of the garrison opened a terrible fire, and a confused echo to their thunder told that the other three divisions of the confederates were meeting a like reception.
The English kept on; the little body of the Grenadiers, with the four battalions supporting them and at the head of all John Cutts, climbed the face of the rock with no sign of disorder.
The King wheeled his horse round to face them, and his brilliant eyes never left their ranks.
The French commenced fire from the guns behind their first palisade, which swept the ranks of the advancing English with deadly effect.