t
may posterity curse me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost
wherever thou shalt point the way--The quarrel is mine, and well it
becomes me to be in the van of the battle."

"Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither
hauberk, nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and
sword."

"The better!" answered Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these
walls. And,--forgive the boast, Sir Knight,--thou shalt this day see
the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye
beheld the steel corslet of a Norman."

"In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door, and
launch the floating bridge."

The portal, which led from the inner-wall of the barbican to the moat,
and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle,
was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward,
and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle
and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began to
thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from
the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of
the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat;
the others retreated back into the barbican.

The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly dangerous,
and would have been still more so, but for the constancy of the
archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon
the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were
manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the
storm of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their
situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every
moment.

"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye
call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station
under the walls of the castle?--Heave over the coping stones from the
battlements, an better may not