CHAPTER IV

OF THE GALLANT STAND OF THE NINE ARCHERS

DISMAYED by the fall of their second leader, the attackers retired out of bowshot, leaving the nine defenders weary and spent, yet exultant over their success.

Their respite, however, was short, for, joined by another body of men from the galleys, the invaders again advanced, this time led by another knight, a short, broad-shouldered man, cased, like his unfortunate predecessor, in plate armour, over which he wore a yellow surcoat charged with the arms of the Spinola family.

"Ah! A rascally Genoese!" exclaimed Redward as he saw the device. "Now we must look to ourselves, for these Genoese combine the skill of the French and the roguery and treachery of the Spaniards; moreover, they have rendered a good account of themselves both by land and sea in their wars with the State of Venice."

Halting at a safe distance, the crossbowmen, protected by mantlets, faced the side of the house where the last attack had been made; a body of men-at-arms deployed and took up a position on each of the two adjacent sides; while a strong detachment of routiers, or lightly-armed men, worked round to the rear, the house thus being entirely surrounded.

Once again the hail of bolts began, and under the cover of this heavy discharge the men-at-arms gained the walls without the slaughter that marked their previous attempt.

With their axes they commenced a violent onslaught on the door, while the defenders were almost without the means of replying, firing only through the loopholes whenever a head appeared or a chance missile was thrown into the room.

At length, emboldened by the slight resistance, one of the men-at-arms was hoisted on the shoulders of two of his comrades, whence he climbed upon the roof. Here he began to vigorously attack the thatch for the purpose of annoying the besieged and diverting their attempts to hold the door.

Alarmed by the noise overhead, Raymond took his despised crossbow, and firing haphazard, sent a bolt through the roof. There was a loud cry, and with a mass of thatch and broken rafters the body of the soldier came crashing down, his chest transfixed by the thick, heavy bolt.

Immediately Redward was hoisted up to the gaping hole, and, regardless of the danger of being picked off by an arrow, he hurled a small sack of quicklime upon the men who were battering at the door.

Blinded by the powerful chemical they gave way, and ran screeching with agony, their leader circling round in an aimless manner, striving the while to tear off his bascinet and clear his eyes from the dust that was slowly and surely depriving him of sight.

Once more the English took heart at the repulse, taunting their enemies as they fell back. Again they had a short respite, though the inaction told more on their wearied bodies than the excitement of the fight.

Raymond felt a warm stream trickle down his arm, and found, to his surprise, that he had received a clean cut on his left shoulder. How or when it occurred he was unable to understand, for in the heat of the struggle he had been blind to his surroundings and the sense of pain.

The rest of the garrison all showed signs of the tremendous odds. Buckland was gashed across the forehead by an arrow, while his hands were bruised and bleeding from the effects of his struggle with the knight at the window.

Walter Bevis was sitting in a corner of the room, trying to extricate a crossbow shaft that had all but buried itself in the upper part of his right leg, and in spite of the excruciating pain was slowly drawing out the barbed head, muttering the while prayers to the Virgin and his patron saints.

The others, having bound up their slighter injuries, cheered the sufferer, and in response to his entreaties, withdrew the bolt. A gush of blood followed, and the man, unable to bear the agony, fainted. Hastily applying a bandage, with the rude knowledge of surgery that they possessed, his comrades left him and returned to their posts to await the next assault.

"Certes! They do not mean to let us be," exclaimed Redward; "it passeth my understanding why they should waste time and many lives in attempting to take our little fortress. Courage, my friends! Another repulse and they will leave us in peace."

But, notwithstanding his repeated encouragements, the master-bowman looked doubtfully on the new phase of the attack. A party of men were bringing a huge mangonel ashore from one of the galleys, and setting it in position, prepared to bombard the house with heavy stones, each capable of tearing a jagged hole in the stonework. At the same time, the French archers advanced on all sides with wisps of burning tow affixed to the heads of their arrows.

At a score paces from the house stood a solitary gnarled trunk of a dead tree, and towards this the bowman cast a hasty yet anxious glance. Then noting with satisfaction that the little wind there was blew from that direction, he gave a sigh of relief.

In the meanwhile the men about the mangonel had set the powerful spring, and a mass of rock lay poised on the gigantic spoon, awaiting only the release of the engine to cast the deadly missile towards the doomed house.

In terrible suspense the garrison crouched behind the stoutest part of the masonry, expecting each moment to find the huge stone crashing over their heads.

The noise of the spring as it was released could be distinctly heard, then with a whirlwind of dust the stone struck the ground at a short distance from the house and rolled harmlessly against the wall.

The next discharge sent the projectile fairly into the roof, knocking away the greater part and half filling the house with fragments of rafters, beams, and thatch.

"'Twill be less thatch to burn!" remarked Buckland encouragingly, though the moral effect of the mangonel was beginning to tell.

Suddenly there was a crash that shook the building to its foundations, and amid a shower of stones and dust a piece of rock forced its way into a corner of the building, leaving a gap a bow's length in width, through which the daylight streamed in, dazzling the defenders with the sudden change from semi-darkness.

At the same time a shower of firebrands descended on the remains of the roof, and in a moment the house was enveloped in flames.

"We are lost!" shouted one and another of the little garrison in dismay. "Let us sally out and die like men, rather than rats in a trap!"

But the master-bowman, cool and collected in the hour of trial, shook his head, and, shouting--for the din was deafening--to his comrades to bear a hand, he seized an iron bar and attacked a large flag in the floor, plying the tool with skill and celerity.

The square stone was dislodged, disclosing a gaping hole in the ground, the top of a rough ladder being dimly visible against its edge.

"Down with ye!" he shouted, and once more hope sprang up in the breast of the despairing men. One by one they vanished into the chasm, till only Redward, Dick, and the unconscious Walter Bevis remained.

There was not a moment to be lost; the flames were already scorching their hair and clothing, while the thick, suffocating fumes caused them to gasp and splutter. Raising their wounded comrade, the other two men lowered him into the arms of those who had already gained safety. Dick then descended, but Redward, after giving a glance at the attackers, who still maintained a respectful distance, suddenly stooped, dragging the body of the hapless French knight across the floor, and dropped it down the hole. Then he swiftly followed, pausing for a moment to draw a large, steel-plated shield over the aperture, and joined his companions in the security of their underground chamber.

For a while they remained motionless, as if unable to realise the turn of fortune, and listening to the dull roar of the flames and the muffled crash of the falling timbers, while the confined air grew hot as the furnace overhead grew fiercer, and the clammy atmosphere of the vault began to give off a humid vapour.

"Silence!" said Redward sternly, as some of the men began to talk excitedly. "Or, if ye do speak, speak only in whispers; for if the rascals discover us they'll smoke us out."

Through a narrow shaft at the far end of the chamber a streak of light faintly filtered, and ere long the men's eyes became accustomed to the darkness. The underground room was about ten paces by four, with a stone-vaulted ceiling. A rough wall of later date cut off one end, but it was evident that this apartment was at one time a portion of a subterranean tunnel which, it was rumoured, led from the church towards the Abbey of Netley, but for some reason was uncompleted.

Again motioning his friends to keep silent, Buckland walked over to the shaft, and, ascending by a rough wooden ladder, gained the hollow trunk of the decayed tree, where, without being seen, he could observe the movements of the invaders.

Four blackened walls and a heap of smoking timbers was all that remained of what was but a short time back his home. Satisfied by destroying the house and, as they thought, its determined inmates, the foe had now retired, and were busy preparing a meal, save a few of the common soldiers, who were either despoiling the dead of their weapons and armour or carrying the wounded back to the shore to embark on board the galleys.

Reassuring himself that their presence was unsuspected, the archer returned to his companions and reported the state of affairs.

"By St. George, thou hast done a clever thing," said Dick admiringly. "But for thee we would have been roast meat ere now. But why didst thou keep us without knowledge of the place so long?"

"To make thee fight the more lustily," replied Redward bluntly. "Hadst thou but known that an asylum awaited thee, thou wouldst have hurried here like a fox to earth, and the Frenchmen, finding the house still standing, would have discovered us and burned us out. Do I not speak aright?"

"Ay, Master Redward! And 'twas as well ye did!"

"And having, as ye admit, saved your lives, I demand a promise in return. I require ye to swear, on pain of forfeiting your eternal salvation, that not a word concerning this place shall pass your lips to any other living creature. Moreover, if I fail to come out alive, my son, Raymond, shall have undisputed possession of this place and its contents, for all I have on this earth is now stored herein."

In solemn silence each man, save the still unconscious Walter, took the required oath, kissing the hilt of a sword in confirmation of his sacred promise. Then, as if a load were lifted off his mind, Redward again ascended the shaft to resume his observations.

Slowly the long day passed. The sun was now overhead, yet the invaders remained inactive, neither advancing into the country nor returning to their ships. Gradually the fires died out, leaving only a number of thin columns of smoke, rising into the still sultry air, to mark what had but lately been a prosperous English village.

After a while Redward again descended into the vault, his place being taken by Will Lightfoot. The opening in the hollow tree only commanded the village and the river, so another hole was laboriously cut in the trunk so as to look towards Southampton, whence Redward expected a speedy arrival of the companies then encamped outside the town.

An hour later there was a stir amongst the foreign soldiers. A trumpet sounded, and they stood to arms, forming in a line on the brow of the hill where Buckland's house formerly stood.

As there was only room for one person in the tree-trunk, Lightfoot had to announce the movements to his comrades below, and, to their joy, they heard him cry out that a vast host of armed men was advancing.

The invaders were unaware of the presence of a large force in the neighbourhood, and, dismayed by the numbers of their attackers, they turned and fled in a disorderly mob to their boats. At the same time the watcher espied the lofty hulls and bellying sails of five English ships standing down Southampton Water with the intention of cutting off the three hostile galleys.

Barely had the boats made a second journey to the galleys with their load of panic-stricken men than a troop of lances, displaying the banners of Lord Willoughby and Sir Charles Bassett, came charging across the undulating ground and through the smouldering street of the village, sweeping aside all opposition and driving the remnant of the Genoese and Spaniards into the river.

It was now high tide, and in the treacherous mud scores of the miserable wretches died a horrible death, for quarter was neither asked nor given. A few of those unencumbered by armour succeeded in swimming off to the galleys, though their companions, with abject cowardice, thought only of getting to sea, letting many of the fugitives drown alongside their ships without even throwing a rope to save them.

Close at the heels of the lances came a body of mounted archers, who, on arriving at the shore, dismounted and poured volleys of arrows into the galleys. Notwithstanding the hail of darts that wrought havoc amongst the slaves who banked the oars, the three vessels slipped their cables and stood towards the mouth of the river, endeavouring to reach Southampton Water before the advancing English ships should bar their passage.

The moment had arrived for Buckland and his companions to leave their underground refuge. Tying three spears together to form a stout battering ram, they applied one end to the mass of metal and charred wood that was once a shield, and which formed the door of their prison.

With a mighty thrust the obstruction was removed, and through a smouldering pile of charred timbers emerged the eight men, their faces disfigured with dried blood and blackened with soot and smoke. Bevis they left, till, on Redward's suggestion, two of them returned and brought him up, semi-conscious and weak from the effect of his wounds.

At that moment the companies of the Constable of Portchester and the Constable of Southampton came swinging along, the sun shining on their arms and accoutrements, while at their head rode Sir John Hacket and Walter de Brakkeleye, one of the Bailiffs of Southampton.

"Certes!" exclaimed Sir John, reining in his horse and gazing open-eyed with astonishment at Redward and his band. "What have we here?"

"Sir Knight," replied Redward, raising the hilt of his sword to his battered headpiece, "here thou dost see all that is left of the six score inhabitants of Hamble!" And, overcome by the loss of blood from no less than six wounds, he reeled and fell heavily on his face before the amazed Constable.