"WITH SPEAR THRUST AND SWEEP OF AXE THEY FELL UPON THE STORMERS."
Shortly after midnight the alarm was raised that the camp was attacked, and with shouts of "Stand to your arms!" the men-at-arms and archers, hastily awakened, formed up for the purpose of repelling the threatened onslaught.
Standing at his post behind his sire and the Constable, Geoffrey could make out the sharp thud of the hoofs of numerous horses, while a babel of discordant sounds, shouted in a foreign tongue, resounded on all sides of the camp.
"Archers, make ready; let no man loose till I give the word," shouted Sir Oliver, as, waiting sword in hand, he strove to detect something in the voices of his unseen antagonists that might tell him who they were!
In spite of their rude awakening the soldiers preserved a coolness only to be gained by constant training in the field. Mechanically the dismounted men-at-arms fell into line, and dropping on one knee, drove the butts of their long spears into the earth, while in the intervening gaps the archers, with arrow on string, awaited the order to let fly their deadly shafts.
Thrice the unseen cavalry galloped completely round the bristling circle of steel, though at a respectful distance, as if attempting to find a weak spot at which to deliver an attack.
"Let them keep to it," remarked Sir Oliver, with a laugh. "Methinks their horses will be blown ere they come within bow-shot."
"Pile on more wood, then," ordered Sir Thomas Carberry. "Make a rousing blaze, for 'tis in our favour, since our backs are to the light. Then perchance we may have a glimpse of our doughty foes."
"They shout in no French tongue, fair sir," exclaimed Geoffrey.