The next discharge sent the projectile fairly into the roof, knocking away the greater part and half filling the house with fragments of rafters, beams, and thatch.
"'Twill be less thatch to burn!" remarked Buckland encouragingly, though the moral effect of the mangonel was beginning to tell.
Suddenly there was a crash that shook the building to its foundations, and amid a shower of stones and dust a piece of rock forced its way into a corner of the building, leaving a gap a bow's length in width, through which the daylight streamed in, dazzling the defenders with the sudden change from semi-darkness.
At the same time a shower of firebrands descended on the remains of the roof, and in a moment the house was enveloped in flames.
"We are lost!" shouted one and another of the little garrison in dismay. "Let us sally out and die like men, rather than rats in a trap!"
But the master-bowman, cool and collected in the hour of trial, shook his head, and, shouting—for the din was deafening—to his comrades to bear a hand, he seized an iron bar and attacked a large flag in the floor, plying the tool with skill and celerity.
The square stone was dislodged, disclosing a gaping hole in the ground, the top of a rough ladder being dimly visible against its edge.
"Down with ye!" he shouted, and once more hope sprang up in the breast of the despairing men. One by one they vanished into the chasm, till only Redward, Dick, and the unconscious Walter Bevis remained.
There was not a moment to be lost; the flames were already scorching their hair and clothing, while the thick, suffocating fumes caused them to gasp and splutter. Raising their wounded comrade, the other two men lowered him into the arms of those who had already gained safety. Dick then descended, but Redward, after giving a glance at the attackers, who still maintained a respectful distance, suddenly stooped, dragging the body of the hapless French knight across the floor, and dropped it down the hole. Then he swiftly followed, pausing for a moment to draw a large, steel-plated shield over the aperture, and joined his companions in the security of their underground chamber.
For a while they remained motionless, as if unable to realise the turn of fortune, and listening to the dull roar of the flames and the muffled crash of the falling timbers, while the confined air grew hot as the furnace overhead grew fiercer, and the clammy atmosphere of the vault began to give off a humid vapour.