Geoffrey, sword in hand, found himself half-way up the creaking ladder, when a loud shout of warning rose high above the din. The enemy had loosened a huge mass of masonry, and toppling it over, swept the ladders of their human burden.
From the mingled crush of dead and wounded the survivors contrived to extricate themselves, and, hopelessly repulsed, began to give back, with cries of rage and alarm.
Shaken and bruised from head to foot, but otherwise unhurt, Geoffrey found himself lying on the brushwood that had broken his fall. With an effort he regained his feet, stung with the bitterness of defeat.
"Stand!" he shouted to the wavering men-at-arms. "Stand! E'en though we have not yet won the day we cannot leave our comrades here."
Encouraged by his words, and by the fact that the English archers were again able to deliver a death-dealing flight of arrows, the discomfited men-at-arms stood their ground, and began to remove the bodies of their unfortunate comrades from the floor of the moat, and with some semblance of order they retired to the rear of the bowmen.
The losses in the repulse had been great. In addition to Sir Oliver, the Constable of Portchester had been stunned through being hurled from the ladder, while eleven dead and fifteen badly wounded men-at-arms testified to the stubbornness of the defence.
"Geoffrey, my son," exclaimed Sir Oliver, as Gripwell and another man-at-arms were preparing to withdraw the quarrel from his leg, "on thee has fallen the command. Thou must needs turn this check into victory, and that soon, otherwise 'tis better to perish to a man than to return to our King beaten and dishonoured."
Then overcome by the anguish of his wound the knight swooned.
The squire realized the responsibility that had been forced upon him. Undoubtedly he must act, and that quickly; yet he was adverse to making another attempt without adopting some other and better plan of attack.
Hastily conferring with Oswald, Gripwell, and Sir Brian, he expounded his proposals for the renewed assault. The Irish, who had hitherto been held in reserve, were to set fire to the heap of faggots and straw that lay in the moat before the gateway. Should the latter be sufficiently charred to enable it to be splintered with axes, the kernes were to dash through the smouldering embers and force an entrance; while the men-at-arms, led by Geoffrey, were to assail the postern through which the two squires had effected their escape on the occasion of their captivity.