CHAPTER IV
OF THE GALLANT STAND OF THE NINE ARCHERS
DISMAYED by the fall of their second leader, the attackers retiredout of bowshot, leaving the nine defenders weary and spent, yetexultant over their success.
Their respite, however, was short, for, joined by another body of menfrom the galleys, the invaders again advanced, this time led byanother knight, a short, broad-shouldered man, cased, like hisunfortunate predecessor, in plate armour, over which he wore a yellowsurcoat charged with the arms of the Spinola family.
"Ah! A rascally Genoese!" exclaimed Redward as he saw the device."Now we must look to ourselves, for these Genoese combine the skillof the French and the roguery and treachery of the Spaniards;moreover, they have rendered a good account of themselves both byland and sea in their wars with the State of Venice."
Halting at a safe distance, the crossbowmen, protected by mantlets,faced the side of the house where the last attack had been made; abody of men-at-arms deployed and took up a position on each of thetwo adjacent sides; while a strong detachment of routiers, orlightly-armed men, worked round to the rear, the house thus beingentirely surrounded.
Once again the hail of bolts began, and under the cover of this heavydischarge the men-at-arms gained the walls without the slaughter thatmarked their previous attempt.
With their axes they commenced a violent onslaught on the door, whilethe defenders were almost without the means of replying, firing onlythrough the loopholes whenever a head appeared or a chance missilewas thrown into the room.
At length, emboldened by the slight resistance, one of themen-at-arms was hoisted on the shoulders of two of his comrades,whence he climbed upon the roof. Here he began to vigorously attackthe thatch for the purpose of annoying the besieged and divertingtheir attempts to hold the door.
Alarmed by the noise overhead, Raymond took his despised crossbow,and firing haphazard, sent a bolt through the roof. There was a loudcry, and with a mass of thatch and broken rafters the body of thesoldier came crashing down, his chest transfixed by the thick, heavybolt.
Immediately Redward was hoisted up to the gaping hole, and,regardless of the danger of being picked off by an arrow, he hurled asmall sack of quicklime upon the men who were battering at the door.
Blinded by the powerful chemical they gave way, and ran screechingwith agony, their leader circling round in an aimless manner,striving the while to tear off his bascinet and clear his eyes fromthe dust that was slowly and surely depriving him of sight.
Once more the English took heart at the repulse, taunting theirenemies as they fell back. Again they had a short respite, though theinaction told more on their wearied bodies than the excitement of thefight.
Raymond felt a warm stream trickle down his arm, and found, to hissurprise, that he had received a clean cut on his left shoulder. Howor when it occurred he was unable to understand, for in the heat ofthe struggle he had been blind to his surroundings and the sense ofpain.
The rest of the garrison all showed signs of the tremendous odds.Buckland was gashed across the forehead by an arrow, while his handswere bruised and bleeding from the effects of his struggle with theknight at the window.
Walter Bevis was sitting in a corner of the room, trying to extricatea crossbow shaft that had all but buried itself in the upper part ofhis right leg, and in spite of the excruciating pain was slowlydrawing out the barbed head, muttering the while prayers to theVirgin and his patron saints.
The others, having bound up their slighter injuries, cheered thesufferer, and in response to his entreaties, withdrew the bolt. Agush of blood followed, and the man, unable to bear the agony,fainted. Hastily applying a bandage, with the rude knowledge ofsurgery that they possessed, his comrades left him and returned totheir posts to await the next assault.
"Certes! They do not mean to let us be," exclaimed Redward; "itpasseth my understanding why they should waste time and many lives inattempting to take our little fortress. Courage, my friends! Anotherrepulse and they will leave us in peace."
But, notwithstanding his repeated encouragements, the master-bowmanlooked doubtfully on the new phase of the attack. A party of men werebringing a huge mangonel ashore from one of the galleys, and settingit in position, prepared to bombard the house with heavy stones, eachcapable of tearing a jagged hole in the stonework. At the same time,the French archers advanced on all sides with wisps of burning towaffixed to the heads of their arrows.
At a score paces from the house stood a solitary gnarled trunk of adead tree, and towards this the bowman cast a hasty yet anxiousglance. Then noting with satisfaction that the little wind there wasblew from that direction, he gave a sigh of relief.
In the meanwhile the men about the mangonel had set the powerfulspring, and a mass of rock lay poised on the gigantic spoon, awaitingonly the release of the engine to cast the deadly missile towards thedoomed house.
In terrible suspense the garrison crouched behind the stoutest partof the masonry, expecting each moment to find the huge stone crashingover their heads.
The noise of the spring as it was released could be distinctly heard,then with a whirlwind of dust the stone struck the ground at a shortdistance from the house and rolled harmlessly against the wall.
The next discharge sent the projectile fairly into the roof, knockingaway the greater part and half filling the house with fragments ofrafters, beams, and thatch.
"'Twill be less thatch to burn!" remarked Buckland encouragingly,though the moral effect of the mangonel was beginning to tell.
Suddenly there was a crash that shook the building to itsfoundations, and amid a shower of stones and dust a piece of rockforced its way into a corner of the building, leaving a gap a bow'slength in width, through which the daylight streamed in, dazzling thedefenders with the sudden change from semi-darkness.
At the same time a shower of firebrands descended on the remains ofthe roof, and in a moment the house was enveloped in flames.
"We are lost!" shouted one and another of the little garrison indismay. "Let us sally out and die like men, rather than rats in atrap!"
But the master-bowman, cool and collected in the hour of trial, shookhis head, and, shouting--for the din was deafening--to his comradesto bear a hand, he seized an iron bar and attacked a large flag inthe floor, plying the tool with skill and celerity.
The square stone was dislodged, disclosing a gaping hole in theground, the top of a rough ladder being dimly visible against itsedge.
"Down with ye!" he shouted, and once more hope sprang up in thebreast of the despairing men. One by one they vanished into thechasm, till only Redward, Dick, and the unconscious Walter Bevisremained.
There was not a moment to be lost; the flames were already scorchingtheir hair and clothing, while the thick, suffocating fumes causedthem to gasp and splutter. Raising their wounded comrade, the othertwo men lowered him into the arms of those who had already gainedsafety. Dick then descended, but Redward, after giving a glance atthe attackers, who still maintained a respectful distance, suddenlystooped, dragging the body of the hapless French knight across thefloor, and dropped it down the hole. Then he swiftly followed,pausing for a moment to draw a large, steel-plated shield over theaperture, and joined his companions in the security of theirunderground chamber.
For a while they remained motionless, as if unable to realise theturn of fortune, and listening to the dull roar of the flames and themuffled crash of the falling timbers, while the confined air grew hotas the furnace overhead grew fiercer, and the clammy atmosphere ofthe vault began to give off a humid vapour.
"Silence!" said Redward sternly, as some of the men began to talkexcitedly. "Or, if ye do speak, speak only in whispers; for if therascals discover us they'll smoke us out."
Through a narrow shaft at the far end of the chamber a streak oflight faintly filtered, and ere long the men's eyes became accustomedto the darkness. The underground room was about ten paces by four,with a stone-vaulted ceiling. A rough wall of later date cut of
f oneend, but it was evident that this apartment was at one time a portionof a subterranean tunnel which, it was rumoured, led from the churchtowards the Abbey of Netley, but for some reason was uncompleted.
Again motioning his friends to keep silent, Buckland walked over tothe shaft, and, ascending by a rough wooden ladder, gained the hollowtrunk of the decayed tree, where, without being seen, he couldobserve the movements of the invaders.
Four blackened walls and a heap of smoking timbers was all thatremained of what was but a short time back his home. Satisfied bydestroying the house and, as they thought, its determined inmates,the foe had now retired, and were busy preparing a meal, save a fewof the common soldiers, who were either despoiling the dead of theirweapons and armour or carrying the wounded back to the shore toembark on board the galleys.
Reassuring himself that their presence was unsuspected, the archerreturned to his companions and reported the state of affairs.
"By St. George, thou hast done a clever thing," said Dick admiringly."But for thee we would have been roast meat ere now. But why didstthou keep us without knowledge of the place so long?"
"To make thee fight the more lustily," replied Redward bluntly."Hadst thou but known that an asylum awaited thee, thou wouldst havehurried here like a fox to earth, and the Frenchmen, finding thehouse still standing, would have discovered us and burned us out. DoI not speak aright?"
"Ay, Master Redward! And 'twas as well ye did!"
"And having, as ye admit, saved your lives, I demand a promise inreturn. I require ye to swear, on pain of forfeiting your eternalsalvation, that not a word concerning this place shall pass your lipsto any other living creature. Moreover, if I fail to come out alive,my son, Raymond, shall have undisputed possession of this place andits contents, for all I have on this earth is now stored herein."
In solemn silence each man, save the still unconscious Walter, tookthe required oath, kissing the hilt of a sword in confirmation of hissacred promise. Then, as if a load were lifted off his mind, Redwardagain ascended the shaft to resume his observations.
Slowly the long day passed. The sun was now overhead, yet theinvaders remained inactive, neither advancing into the country norreturning to their ships. Gradually the fires died out, leaving onlya number of thin columns of smoke, rising into the still sultry air,to mark what had but lately been a prosperous English village.
After a while Redward again descended into the vault, his place beingtaken by Will Lightfoot. The opening in the hollow tree onlycommanded the village and the river, so another hole was laboriouslycut in the trunk so as to look towards Southampton, whence Redwardexpected a speedy arrival of the companies then encamped outside thetown.
An hour later there was a stir amongst the foreign soldiers. Atrumpet sounded, and they stood to arms, forming in a line on thebrow of the hill where Buckland's house formerly stood.
As there was only room for one person in the treetrunk, Lightfoot hadto announce the movements to his comrades below, and, to their joy,they heard him cry out that a vast host of armed men was advancing.
The invaders were unaware of the presence of a large force in theneighbourhood, and, dismayed by the numbers of their attackers, theyturned and fled in a disorderly mob to their boats. At the same timethe watcher espied the lofty hulls and bellying sails of five Englishships standing down Southampton Water with the intention of cuttingoff the three hostile galleys.
Barely had the boats made a second journey to the galleys with theirload of panic-stricken men than a troop of lances, displaying thebanners of Lord Willoughby and Sir Charles Bassett, came chargingacross the undulating ground and through the smouldering street ofthe village, sweeping aside all opposition and driving the remnant ofthe Genoese and Spaniards into the river.
It was now high tide, and in the treacherous mud scores of themiserable wretches died a horrible death, for quarter was neitherasked nor given. A few of those unencumbered by armour succeeded inswimming off to the galleys, though their companions, with abjectcowardice, thought only of getting to sea, letting many of thefugitives drown alongside their ships without even throwing a rope tosave them.
Close at the heels of the lances came a body of mounted archers, who,on arriving at the shore, dismounted and poured volleys of arrowsinto the galleys. Notwithstanding the hail of darts that wroughthavoc amongst the slaves who banked the oars, the three vesselsslipped their cables and stood towards the mouth of the river,endeavouring to reach Southampton Water before the advancing Englishships should bar their passage.
The moment had arrived for Buckland and his companions to leave theirunderground refuge. Tying three spears together to form a stoutbattering ram, they applied one end to the mass of metal and charredwood that was once a shield, and which formed the door of theirprison.
With a mighty thrust the obstruction was removed, and through asmouldering pile of charred timbers emerged the eight men, theirfaces disfigured with dried blood and blackened with soot and smoke.Bevis they left, till, on Redward's suggestion, two of them returnedand brought him up, semi-conscious and weak from the effect of hiswounds.
At that moment the companies of the Constable of Portchester and theConstable of Southampton came swinging along, the sun shining ontheir arms and accoutrements, while at their head rode Sir JohnHacket and Walter de Brakkeleye, one of the Bailiffs of Southampton.
"Certes!" exclaimed Sir John, reining in his horse and gazingopen-eyed with astonishment at Redward and his band. "What have wehere?"
"Sir Knight," replied Redward, raising the hilt of his sword to hisbattered headpiece, "here thou dost see all that is left of the sixscore inhabitants of Hamble!" And, overcome by the loss of blood fromno less than six wounds, he reeled and fell heavily on his facebefore the amazed Constable.