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.