them
Nigel handed down his wounded friend, and each archer in turn did the
same. Again and again Nigel went back until no one lay in the tunnel
save seven who had died there. Thirteen wounded were laid in the shelter
of the ditch, and there they must remain until night came to cover them.
Meanwhile the bowmen on the farther side protected them from attack, and
also prevented the enemy from all attempts to build up the outer gate.
The gaping smoke-blackened arch was all that they could show for a loss
of thirty men, but that at least Knolles was determined to keep.

Burned and bruised, but unconscious of either pain or fatigue for the
turmoil of his spirit within him, Nigel knelt by the Frenchman and
loosened his helmet. The girlish face of the young Squire was white as
chalk, and the haze of death was gathering over his violet eyes, but
a faint smile played round his lips as he looked up at his English
comrade.

"I shall never see Beatrice again," he whispered. "I pray you, Nigel,
that when there is a truce you will journey as far as my father's
chateau and tell him how his son died. Young Gaston will rejoice, for
to him come the land and the coat, the war-cry and the profit. See them,
Nigel, and tell them that I was as forward as the others."

"Indeed Raoul, no man could have carried himself with more honor or won
more worship than you have done this day. I will do your behest when the
time comes."

"Surely you are happy, Nigel," the dying Squire murmured, "for this
day has given you one more deed which you may lay at the feet of your
lady-love."

"It might have been so had we carried the gate," Nigel answered sadly;
"but by Saint Paul! I cannot count it a deed where I have come back with
my purpose unfulfilled. But this is no time, Raoul, to talk of my
small affairs. If we take the castle and I bear a good part in it, then
perchance all this may indeed avail."

The Frenchman sat up with that strange energy which comes often as the
harbinger of death. "You will win your Lady Mary, Nigel, and your great
deeds will be not three but a score, so that in all Christendom there
shall be no man of blood and coat-armor who has not heard your name and
your fame. This I tell you--I, Raoul de la Roche Pierre de Bras, dying
upon the field of honor. And now kiss me, sweet friend, and lay me back,
for the mists close round me and I am gone!"

With tender hands the Squire lowered his comrade's head, but even as he
did so ther