CHAPTER XVIII
THE PLAGUE PIT
Seven long days had gone by and still Hugh and Grey Dick held out intheir Tower fortress. Though as yet unhurt, they were weary indeed,since they must watch all night and could only sleep by snatches in thedaytime, one lying down to rest while the other kept guard.
As they had foreseen, except by direct assault, the place provedimpregnable, its moat protecting it upon three sides and the sheer wallof the old city terminating in the deep fosse upon the fourth. In itslittle armoury, among other weapons they had found a great store ofarrows and some good bows, whereof Hugh took the best and longest. Thusarmed with these they placed themselves behind the loopholes of theembattled gateway, whence they could sweep the space before them. Orif danger threatened them elsewhere, there were embrasures whencethey could command the bases of the walls. Lastly, also, there was thecentral tower, whereof they could hold each landing with the sword.
Thrice they had been attacked, since there seemed to be hundreds offolk in Avignon bent upon their destruction, but each time their bitterarrows, that rarely seemed to miss, had repulsed the foe with loss. Evenwhen an onslaught was delivered on the main gateway at night, theyhad beaten their assailants by letting fall upon them through the_machicoulis_ or overhanging apertures, great stones that had been piledup there, perhaps generations before, when the place was built.
Still the attacks did not slacken. Indeed the hate of the citizens ofAvignon against these two bold Englishmen, whose courage and resourcethey attributed to help given to them by the powers of evil, seemed togrow from day to day, even as the plague grew in the streets of thatsore-afflicted city. From their walls they could see friars preachinga kind of crusade against them. They pointed toward the tower withcrucifixes, invoking their hearers to pull it stone from stone and slaythe wizards within, the wizards who had conspired with the accursedJews even beneath the eyes of his Holiness the Pope, to bring doom onAvignon.
The eighth morn broke at length, and its first red rays discovered Hughand Dick kneeling side by side behind the battlements of the gateway.Each of them was making petition to heaven in his own fashion forforgiveness of his sins, since they were outworn and believed that thisday would be their last.
"What did you pray for, Dick?" asked Hugh, glancing at his companion'sfierce face, which in that half light looked deathlike and unearthly.
"What did I pray for? Well, for the first part let it be; that's betwixtme and whatever Power sent me out to do its business on the earth. Butfor the last--I'll tell you. It was that we may go hence with such aguard of dead French as never yet escorted two Englishmen from Avignonto heaven--or hell. Ay, and we will, master, for to-day, as they shoutedto us, they'll storm this tower; but if our strength holds out there'smany a one who'll never win its crest."
"Rather would I have died peacefully, Dick. Yet the blood of thesehounds will not weigh upon my soul, seeing that they seek to murder usfor no fault except that we saved a woman and two children from theircruel devilries. Oh! could I but know that Red Eve and Sir Andrew weresafe away, I'd die a happy man."
"I think we shall know that and much more before to-morrow's dawn,master, or never know anything again. Look! they gather yonder. Now letus eat, for perhaps later we shall find no time."