uard that consists of Thuringian horsemen and Saxon archers. The last
wagons and the rear guard have barely entered the defile, when suddenly
the lugubrious cry of the night bird, resembling that which had greeted
the first arrival of the Frankish army, resounds again, and is echoed
from peak to peak, along the whole length of the overtopping rocks.
Immediately thereupon, pushed by invisible arms, several enormous
boulders detach themselves from the surrounding rocks that an instant
before seemed a solid part of themselves, roll and bound with the rattle
of thunder from the top of the crest down to the foot of the mountain,
and fall crashing upon the wagons, crushing a large number of soldiers
to death, mutilating many more and disabling the train. In their
paroxysms of death, or rendered furious by their wounds, the oxen crowd
upon or roll over one another, and throw the rear guard of the Franks
into such frightful disorder that it is wholly unable to make another
step in advance; it is cut off from the gross of the troops by the
lumber in its way; it is reduced to utter impotence. All along the rest
of the length of the defile of Glen-Clan the Franks are in similar
plight. All along the line, fragments of rocks roll down from the
overtopping crests, crushing and decimating the compact mass of soldiers
below. The gigantic serpent of iron is mutilated, cut into bleeding
sections; it writhes convulsively at the bottom of the ravine, while
from the summits on either side, now crowned with a swarm of Bretons,
who kept themselves until then concealed, a hailstorm of arrows,
boar-spears and stones rains down upon the bewildered, panic-stricken
and impotent Frankish cohorts, caught and hemmed in between the two
granite walls, from whose tops our men deal prompt and unavoidable death
to their invaders. Vortigern is in command of these resolute and
watchful Bretons. His bow in one hand, his quiver by his side, not one
of his bolts misses its mark.

The butchery is frightful! The carnage superb! The Gallic war-songs and
cries of triumph from above answer the imprecations of the Franks from
below. A frightful butchery!

A superb carnage! It lasts as long as our men have a stone to throw, a
bolt or a spear to hurl at the foe. His own, and the munitions of his
companions being exhausted, Vortigern cries down from the summit of the
rocks to the frantic Franks below, accompanying the cry with a gesture
of defiance:

"We will thus