iers, the hatchets are, at a signal, plied with energy; the pegs
drop out; and the passage is suddenly cut up by scores of gaps twenty
feet wide. Pell-mell foot soldiers, cavalrymen and their horses tumble
to the bottom of these suddenly opened ditches, and are received
thereupon by the sharp points of piles providently sunk at the bottom.

At the sight of these death-dealing traps, suddenly gaping before them
at their feet, and at the sound of the wild cries and imprecations
uttered by the wounded and by those who are being pushed forward into
the abysses by the crowding ranks behind, a tremendous disorder,
followed by a panic, spreads among the Franks. Fearing the path to be
everywhere undermined, the soldiers crowd back and forward upon one
another in a frenzy of despair. The frightened horses rear, tumble down,
or rush furiously into the marsh where they vanish together with their
riders. The confusion and rout being at its height, the Bretons rise
from their places of concealment among the reeds, and hurl promiscuously
a shower of bolts upon the confused heaps of soldiers, now rendered
insane with fear, and in their panic either trampling upon one another,
or themselves being trampled upon by their uncontrollable steeds. Other
war-crys respond from a distance to the war-cries struck up by Vortigern
and his men. A troop of Bretons issues from the forest and ranks itself
in battle array at the border of the marsh ready to dispute the passage
if the Franks dare to attempt it The sight of these fresh foes carries
the panic of Neroweg's troops to its acme. Instead of marching onward
towards the edge of the forest, the front rank faces about, anxious only
to join the body of the army that still finds itself massed at the
entrance of the fatal causeway. The rush is effected with such fury that
the deep trenches are speedily filled with the bodies of a mass of
wounded, dead and dying warriors. The heaped-up corpses soon serve as a
bridge to the fleeing Franks, whose rear the Breton bolts assail
unpityingly. At the spectacle of the routed Franks, Vortigern and his
braves strike up anew the war song with which they had assailed the ears
of the distracted Franks at the defile of Glen-Clan:

"This morning we asked:
'How many are there of these Franks?
How many are there of these barbarians?'
This evening we say:
'How many were there of these Franks?
How many were there of these barbarians?'