“Surrender, Beaumanoir! I’ll send you a prisoner to my lady love!”
Bertrand and Tinteniac sprang forward for a rescue, Du Guesclin bringing the governor of Ploermel to earth with a down stroke of his axe. Tinteniac’s sword ended the argument; Bamborough’s head fell away from the hacked and bleeding neck.
Beaumanoir had freed himself, and was up, shaking his sword.
“St. Ives,” he cried, “Bamborough is dead! Courage, Bretons, and the day is ours!”
Croquart the Fleming seized on Bamborough’s authority, and, closing up his men, charged the Bretons and bore them slowly back. Strive as they would, Bertrand and the stoutest of them were driven to the very shadow of the great oak. The crowd of watchers went swaying and scrambling back from the eddying ripples of that pool of death. The sweat and clangor awed the peasantry, though a hoarse shout of despair went up when the Sieur de Beaumanoir’s banner lurched down into the dust.
Then came a second pause for breath, the English waiting like dogs to make their last dash at the wounded stag. Beaumanoir, drenched with blood, his strength failing because of the fast he had kept before mass, leaned upon Bodegat and called for wine.
“Drink your own blood, Beaumanoir!” cried Dubois, half mad with his wounds. “Courage, sirs, there is hope in us yet!”
It was then that young Guillaume de Montauban, whom Beaumanoir had chosen, ran away towards his horse, his comrades cursing him for a coward as he stumbled over the moor.
“Take care of your own work,” shouted the youngster, as he scrambled into the saddle, “and I, before God, will take care of mine!”
He swung round and, thrusting in the spurs, rode for the English at a gallop. His heavy horse broke through with a crash, scattering the war dogs, and leaving many floundering, cumbered and weighed down by their heavy harness. Geoffroi Dubois sprang forward as he grasped the ruse. The Bretons, rallying together, charged down upon the English before they could recover. The wedge of steel was rent asunder, the men whom Montauban had overthrown made easy prisoners as they struggled to rise.