Rodolph saw that the moment three or four of the enemy made good their stand at any one part of the wall, their comrades would swarm up at that point and the castle would be taken, for the besiegers were so numerous they might speedily overpower the little garrison. He gave the word to cut the ropes whether the ascending man got foothold or not. The defenders, in the fury of the battle, were paying more attention to the splitting of skulls than the destroying of the means of ascent, often leaving a rope dangling where another than its original owner might come up. After this command the battle-axes clove each rope at its junction with the wooden billet, and so destroyed its usefulness, for there was no time in the mêlée to retie the cord to other billets, even if other billets were to hand. When at last the ladders came, the fight waxed more fierce. Here Rodolph took pattern by the Black Count, and gave command to the defenders to hold catapult stones in readiness and wait till two or three men were following each other up a ladder, then hurl granite on the foremost, who in his fall brought down his comrades with him. In each case when this was accomplished the men on the walls were instructed to rush forward, pull up the ladder and throw it inside the courtyard. In this way most of the ladders had been taken before the attacking force rightly estimated their loss, or indeed noticed it in the exciting conflict which was going forward, and with each capture the danger to the castle grew less. Black Heinrich looked grimly on, taking little part in the defence now that the attack on the gate had been abandoned, but once when, in spite of all efforts of the defenders, four ladders had been placed simultaneously together and half-a-dozen men succeeded in mounting the battlements, the Count sprang forward and grasping one after another of the invaders, flung them, head over heels, through the air in such quick succession, and with such incredible force, that most of them rolled well nigh into the village of Alken before they came to rest on the hillside. The raiders gradually became discouraged, but were buoyed up by the hope that other points of attack might be more favoured by fate than theirs, else the retreat would have sounded from the bugle. But suddenly a riderless horse came galloping round a corner from the gate, and the officers recognised the animal from its trappings. Like wildfire spread the rumour, "Count Bertrich is slain," then all heart departed from the attack, and a wild exultant cheer rose from those in the castle. The retreat down the hill became a panic-stricken flight, which the catapults, now in activity again, accelerated.
"Show your white flag!" roared Heinrich, striding up and down the battlements, intoxicated with his triumph, and waving hands above his head like a madman. "Show your white flag; you surely were not foolish enough to attack without it."
The white flag presently did appear coming up from Alken, and the request was made that they be allowed to bear away their dead and wounded. Then at last the active engines ceased and the tired men sat on beams and parapet, drawing sleeves across their sweating brows.
The foot of the walls presented an appalling spectacle. There was a windrow of dead and wounded, as if the poor wrecked human beings had been some sort of wingless moths who had flung themselves against these adamant walls, and had paid the last penalty of their rashness. Parts of broken ladders lay mingled with the slain, together with the round lumps of stone which had been their undoing.
"Is it true that Count Bertrich has been slain?" asked Rodolph of Heinrich, when the latter had assumed his customary calm.
"I know nothing of it. Here is the archer who was on the tower; he may be able to tell us."
"Indeed," said Surrey, "I fear it is not true, for I had no fair shot at him. It was not my intention to have killed him so early in the game, but he must needs insult me, so I let fly at him."
"How did he insult you?"
"He raved at the cautious crossbow men, telling them that if they did not come out from the wood they were cowards. Now it is not fair to call a man a coward who fears my bow, and that expression I took as an insult. He is a wise man and not a coward who betakes himself to the wood when my arrows are abroad."