ck with war in his face. The bastard moved out of the line to meet
him, and their heads had not been together two seconds ere he turned in
his saddle and shouted, "Pioneers, to the van!" and in a moment hedges
were levelled, and the force took the field and encamped just out of
shot from the walls; and away went mounted officers flying south, east,
and west, to the friendly towns, for catapults, palisades, mantelets,
raw hides, tar-barrels, carpenters, provisions, and all the materials
for a siege.

The bright perspective mightily cheered one drooping soldier. At
the first clang of the portcullis his eyes brightened and his temple
flushed; and when the herald came back with battle in his eye he saw it
in a moment, and for the first time this many days cried, "Courage, tout
le monde, le diable est mort."

If that great warrior heard, how he must have grinned!

The besiegers encamped a furlong from the walls, and made roads; kept
their pikemen in camp ready for an assault when practicable; and sent
forward their sappers, pioneers, catapultiers, and crossbowmen. These
opened a siege by filling the moat, and mining, or breaching the wall,
etc. And as much of their work had to be done under close fire of
arrows, quarels, bolts, stones, and little rocks, the above artists "had
need of a hundred eyes," and acted in concert with a vigilance, and an
amount of individual intelligence, daring, and skill, that made a siege
very interesting, and even amusing: to lookers on.

The first thing they did was to advance their carpenters behind rolling
mantelets, to erect a stockade high and strong on the very edge of the
moat. Some lives were lost at this, but not many; for a strong force of
crossbowmen, including Denys, rolled their mantelets up and shot over
the workmen's heads at every besieged who showed his nose, and at every
loophole, arrow-slit, or other aperture, which commanded the particular
spot the carpenters happened to be upon. Covered by their condensed
fire, these soon raised a high palisade between them and the ordinary
missiles from the pierced masonry.

But the besieged expected this, and ran out at night their boards or
wooden penthouses on the top of the curtains. The curtains were built
with square holes near the top to receive the beams that supported these
structures, the true defence of mediaeval forts, from which the besieged
delivered their missiles with far more freedom and variety of range
than they could