ong time he ran, the crowd laughing and cock-crowing at the sight,
until at last he stumbled and fell stone-dead upon his face. But the
fighters had seen nothing of his fate, for desperate and unceasing was
the rush of the Bretons and the steady advance of the English line.

For a time it seemed as if nothing would break it, but gap-toothed
Beaumanoir was a general as well as a warrior. Whilst his weary,
bleeding, hard-breathing men still flung themselves upon the front of
the line, he himself with Raguenel, Tentiniac, Alain de Karanais, and
Dubois rushed round the flank and attacked the English with fury
from behind. There was a long and desperate melee until once more the
heralds, seeing the combatants stand gasping and unable to strike a
blow, rode in and called yet another interval of truce.

But in those few minutes whilst they had been assaulted upon both
sides, the losses of the English party had been heavy. The Anglo-Breton
D'Ardaine had fallen before Beaumanoir's sword, but not before he had
cut deeply into his enemy's shoulder. Sir Thomas Walton, Richard of
Ireland one of the Squires, and Hulbitee the big peasant had all fallen
before the mace of the dwarf Raguenel or the swords of his companions.
Some twenty men were still left standing upon either side, but all were
in the last state of exhaustion, gasping, reeling, hardly capable of
striking a blow.

It was strange to see them as they staggered with many a lurch and
stumble toward each other once again, for they moved like drunken men,
and the scales of their neck-armor and joints were as red as fishes'
gills when they raised them They left foul wet footprints behind them
on the green grass as they moved forward once more to their endless
contest.

Beaumanoir, faint with the drain of his blood and with a tongue of
leather, paused as he advanced. "I am fainting, comrades," he cried. "I
must drink."

"Drink your own blood, Beaumanoir!" cried Dubois, and the weary men all
croaked together in dreadful laughter.

But now the English had learned from experience, and under the guidance
of Croquart they fought no longer in a straight line, but in one so
bent that at last it became a circle. As the Bretons still pushed and
staggered against it they thrust it back on every side, until they had
turned it into the most dangerous formation of all, a solid block of
men, their faces turned outward, their weapons bristling forth to meet
every attack. Thus the Englis