Slowly the long day passed. The sun was now overhead, yet the invaders remained inactive, neither advancing into the country nor returning to their ships. Gradually the fires died out, leaving only a number of thin columns of smoke, rising into the still sultry air, to mark what had but lately been a prosperous English village.
After a while Redward again descended into the vault, his place being taken by Will Lightfoot. The opening in the hollow tree only commanded the village and the river, so another hole was laboriously cut in the trunk so as to look towards Southampton, whence Redward expected a speedy arrival of the companies then encamped outside the town.
An hour later there was a stir amongst the foreign soldiers. A trumpet sounded, and they stood to arms, forming in a line on the brow of the hill where Buckland's house formerly stood.
As there was only room for one person in the tree-trunk, Lightfoot had to announce the movements to his comrades below, and, to their joy, they heard him cry out that a vast host of armed men was advancing.
The invaders were unaware of the presence of a large force in the neighbourhood, and, dismayed by the numbers of their attackers, they turned and fled in a disorderly mob to their boats. At the same time the watcher espied the lofty hulls and bellying sails of five English ships standing down Southampton Water with the intention of cutting off the three hostile galleys.
Barely had the boats made a second journey to the galleys with their load of panic-stricken men than a troop of lances, displaying the banners of Lord Willoughby and Sir Charles Bassett, came charging across the undulating ground and through the smouldering street of the village, sweeping aside all opposition and driving the remnant of the Genoese and Spaniards into the river.
It was now high tide, and in the treacherous mud scores of the miserable wretches died a horrible death, for quarter was neither asked nor given. A few of those unencumbered by armour succeeded in swimming off to the galleys, though their companions, with abject cowardice, thought only of getting to sea, letting many of the fugitives drown alongside their ships without even throwing a rope to save them.
Close at the heels of the lances came a body of mounted archers, who, on arriving at the shore, dismounted and poured volleys of arrows into the galleys. Notwithstanding the hail of darts that wrought havoc amongst the slaves who banked the oars, the three vessels slipped their cables and stood towards the mouth of the river, endeavouring to reach Southampton Water before the advancing English ships should bar their passage.
The moment had arrived for Buckland and his companions to leave their underground refuge. Tying three spears together to form a stout battering ram, they applied one end to the mass of metal and charred wood that was once a shield, and which formed the door of their prison.
With a mighty thrust the obstruction was removed, and through a smouldering pile of charred timbers emerged the eight men, their faces disfigured with dried blood and blackened with soot and smoke. Bevis they left, till, on Redward's suggestion, two of them returned and brought him up, semi-conscious and weak from the effect of his wounds.