eon and the
_Adventure_; and half an hour's bombardment will make 'em glad enough to
come to terms wi' us. Now, the one half of you charge back along, down
the street; the other half will follow, retiring backward and facing the
enemy. Now, have at 'em, my hearts, for here they come! Clear the way
with your arrows first; and then give 'em the cold steel!"

While Bascomb had been delivering his pithy address, the officer in
armour had also been haranguing his troops with much gesticulation and
sword nourishing, which he had wound up with a command to charge,
himself leading the attack upon the little band of English seamen
wedged, so to speak, in the throat of the narrow street. At Bascomb's
word to "Have at 'em" the half nearest the street faced quickly about,
and the whole party fitted arrows to their bows, drew them to the head,
and let fly, half of the arrows winging their way to rake the narrow
street, while the other half whistled into the ranks of the soldiers in
the square, who had just put spurs to their horses. The range was
short, and the aim deadly, consequently every arrow found its mark, some
of them indeed twice over, for there were at least a dozen of the cloth
yard shafts that passed clean through the body of their first victim to
find lodgment in the body of the second. As for Dick, he distinguished
himself by sending an arrow neatly between the bars of the visor of the
officer on horseback, who thereupon reeled out of his saddle, and
crashed down upon the cobbled pavement of the square with a rattle like
that of a whole cartload of spilled ironmongery, close to Chichester's
feet, who thereupon dashed nimbly in and snatched up the splendid sword
that flew from the fallen warrior's grasp. Some twenty soldiers fell to
that first discharge; and so great was the dismay occasioned by their
fall that their comrades, instead of continuing their charge and riding
the Englishmen down, as they might easily have done, reined their horses
sharply back upon their haunches, with the result that their comrades in
the rear dashed headlong into them, and in an instant the whole of that
part of the square which abutted upon the street became a confused
medley of plunging, squealing, and fallen horses, and dead and wounded
men.

Meanwhile, the other front of the English had been equally successful,
their first discharge of arrows having been so deadly that the soldiers
drawn up across the end of the street to cut