Thus this bold coup de main of the Spaniards failed. Its only chance of success, in truth, was to find that the point of attack was undefended, as they supposed that it was; but Gabriel, happening to be on the spot, had baffled their scheme. The assaulting party had no choice but to withdraw, which they did as quickly as possible, leaving, however, a number of dead behind them, and carrying away a number of injured men.
Again the town had been saved, and again by Gabriel's hand.
But it was necessary that it should still hold out for four long and weary days, before the promise he had made to the king would be fulfilled.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A VICTORIOUS DEFEAT
The first effect of the unexpected check they had received was to discourage the besiegers; and they seemed to realize that they could never gain possession of the town except by dealing with the remaining resources of resistance one by one, and thus making each of them unavailable. For three days they made no fresh assault; but all their batteries were kept in play, and all their mines were working without rest or intermission. The men who defended the place, seemingly endowed with more than human energy and courage, appeared to be invincible; the Spaniards assailed the walls, and found them less solid than the breasts of those who manned them. The towers crumbled; the trenches were filled with the debris; and the fortifications were levelled, bit by bit.
At last, four days after the abortive night attack, the Spaniards once more hazarded an assault. It was the eighth and last day of the allotted time. If the attack of the enemy was unsuccessful once more, Gabriel would have saved his father as well as the town; if not, all his trouble and all his labor had been thrown away, and the old man, Diane, and himself would be all lost.
Therefore it can well be imagined that it would be more than impossible to describe the superhuman, god-like valor and courage displayed by him on that day of days. One would hardly have believed that so much strength and untiring vigor could exist in the soul and body of one man. He saw not danger or death, but thought only of his father and his betrothed; and he hurled himself against the pikes, and moved hither and thither amid the thickly flying cannon-balls and bullets as if he were invulnerable. A piece of stone struck him in the side, and a lance-head in the face; but he felt not the wounds. He seemed intoxicated with daring; he ran to and fro, waving his sword, and encouraging his men not only with his words, but by his example. He was to be seen wherever the peril was most imminent. As the soul gives life to the whole body, so did he to the whole town. He was in himself ten men, twenty,—yes, a hundred; and yet in his superb exaltation his coolness and clear-headedness never failed him. With a glance swifter than light he saw where danger threatened, and was on the spot in the twinkling of an eye; and when the assailants fell back, and our brave fellows, electrified by his contagious gallantry, had clearly regained the advantage, like a flash Gabriel was off to some other threatened point, and began again his heroic work, an utter stranger to weariness or weakness.
This lasted six hours, from one o'clock to seven.
At seven it grew dark; and the Spaniards fell back on all sides. Behind a few crumbling pieces of stone-work, with a few fragments of towers and a handful of exhausted and wounded soldiers, St. Quentin had again added one day more, several days, it might be, to the record of her glorious resistance.