amongst
the prowest of William's band of martial brothers) would willingly have
preferred to see before him Fitzosborne or Montgommeri, all clad in steel
and armed with mace and lance, than parried those dazzling strokes, and
fronted the angry majesty of that helmless brow. Already the strong rings
of his mail had been twice pierced, and his blood trickled fast, while
his great sword had but smitten the air in its sweeps at the foe; when
the Saxon phalanx, taking advantage of the breach in the ring that girt
them, caused by this diversion, and recognising with fierce ire the gold
torque and breastplate of the Welch King, made their desperate charge.
Then for some minutes the pele mele was confused and indistinct--blows
blind and at random--death coming no man knew whence or how; till
discipline and steadfast order (which the Saxons kept, as by mechanism,
through the discord) obstinately prevailed. The wedge forced its way;
and, though reduced in numbers and sore wounded, the Saxon troop cleared
the ring, and joined the main force drawn up by the fort, and guarded in
the rear by its wall.

Meanwhile Harold, supported by the band under Sexwolf, had succeeded at
length in repelling farther reinforcements of the Welch at the more
accessible part of the trenches; and casting now his practised eye over
the field, he issued orders for some of the men to regain the fort, and
open from the battlements, and from every loophole, the batteries of
stone and javelin, which then (with the Saxons, unskilled in sieges,)
formed the main artillery of forts. These orders given, he planted
Sexwolf and most of his band to keep watch round the trenches; and
shading his eye with his hand, and looking towards the moon, all waning
and dimmed in the watchfires, he said, calmly, "Now patience fights for
us. Ere the moon reaches yon hill-top, the troops of Aber and Caer-hen
will be on the slopes of Penmaen, and cut off the retreat of the
Walloons. Advance my flag to the thick of yon strife."

But as the Earl, with his axe swung over his shoulder, and followed but
by some half-score or more with his banner, strode on where the wild war
was now mainly concentred, just midway between trench and fort, Gryffyth
caught sight both of the banner and the Earl, and left the press at the
very moment when he had gained the greatest advantage; and when indeed,
but for the Norman, who, wounded as he was, and unused to fight on foot,
stood resolute in the v