"Thy bowmen next!" shouted the earl to Richard. "Follow the knights closely. The pikemen are already far ahead. If it be God's will, we will sweep the town in an hour."
Hotly rushed Richard's blood as he pressed on, followed by three hundred of the archers of Arden. Hardly he knew what time had passed after that until he found himself halted to watch while axemen battered at a town gate and pikemen placed ladders to mount a wall. His archers meantime were making targets of whoever might show himself among the wall battlements.
"Is this the way a town is taken?" he exclaimed. "I deemed there were more delay. There go the good knights, up the ladders and through the gate! 'Twas but badly made, to be broken in so soon. On, men of Arden! Follow me!"
Follow they did, and some good archery work befell them after they entered the town, but the English were even too many for the capture and pillage of so small a place.
"It was no battle, my Lord," Richard said to the earl two hours later, as they met in the great square in the center of the town. "But we have taken Barfleur."
"That have we," said the earl, "and that is all. Look yonder!"
Across long rows of intervening houses gazed the young captain as the earl pointed. There was a rocky height, and upon it arose the towers and the turreted walls of a great castle.
"I see," said Richard. "It hath a strong look. How shall we take it?"