Shrieks and cries for help mingled with the blast of a trumpet and the
trampling of feet, as Roy hurried on his clothes, his first thought
being not to follow his father, but to reach his mother's room, though,
in the confusion of brain from which he suffered, he felt that he could
explain nothing about the cause of the explosion. All he could think
was that by some means the Cavaliers must have contrived to gain access
to the powder-magazine. But how?
That was a mystery.
While he hurriedly dressed, he could hear orders being given, and the
guns which had been brought in and planted beneath the gate-way being
dragged into the middle of the court, and planted where they would
command the terrible breach in the castle defences; for, by a flickering
light, which was now rising, falling, and always gathering in intensity,
Roy could see that a large portion of the eastern side of the building
was blown down, leaving a tremendous gap. The stabling, corridor,
hospital-room, and servants' and other adjacent chambers, were gone; and
as he gazed across from his open window, the light suddenly blazed up,
brightly illuminating the ruin, and showing the garrison busily
preparing for their defence.
It was time; for, as Roy paused for a few moments, hesitating to leave
the scene which fascinated him by its weird horror, the Royalists were
crossing the half-filled-in moat, scrambling, wading, helping each
other, and cheering madly. There was no formation; they were forced to
come on straggling as they could, but a fierce enthusiasm filled their
breasts, and they literally swarmed into the ruins, and climbed here and
there among the flames and smoke.
Fully expecting to be stopped, Roy opened his door; but the sentry had
been summoned with those from the towers and ramparts to defend the
great gap, and Roy passed on to his mother's room, entered without
stopping to knock, to see her surrounded by the women-servants at the
window, their faces lit up by the flames rising brighter and brighter
from the ruins.
Lady Royland did not hear her son enter, but turned and caught his hands
as he ran to her.
"Roy!" she cried, wildly. "What does this mean?"
"Our turn at last, mother," he said, wild with excitement. "Look,--look
at them, the Royalists; they've blown down that side, and father is
there with two hundred Cavaliers!"
"Roy!" she cried, hysterically.
"Yes," continued the lad, as he forced himself to the front, and gazed
out; "look, mother; nothing stops them. Hurrah! More and more, and--"
The roar of one of the guns from the middle of the court drowned his
words, and there was another roar, but the effect was little. The guns
were discharged point-blank at the storming party climbing on the ruins;
but they were scattered like skirmishers, and the gun-fire did not check
them in the least. To Roy it only seemed that they dashed in more
furiously, swarming, by the light of the blazing ruins, like bees; and
before the guns could be reloaded, the Cavaliers were upon the defenders
of the place, and a desperate hand-to-hand fight commenced.
Roy turned excitedly to his mother.
"Stop here; keep the women with you, and don't go near the window; there
may be firing;" and, even as he spoke, shots began to ring out.
"Stop! Where are you going?" cried Lady Royland, clinging to him.
"To release our men, and help my father," said Roy.
Lady Royland's hands fell to her sides, and the boy darted out of the
room and along the corridor, full of the idea that had flashed into his
brain.
Away to the end he ran unchallenged, turned to the right, and without
meeting a soul, reached the north-east tower, listening to the shouting
and clashing of swords in the court as the desperate fight went on, his
way lit by the glare from the flames in spite of the dense, heavy smoke
and the choking fumes of exploded gunpowder which rolled along the
passage.
With his heart beating wildly for fear he should be too late, Roy dashed
down the spiral staircase to the basement, and the next minute he
reached the door of the lower hall, which formed the men's
prison-chamber.
The sentries were gone, and he thrust back the bolts and turned the
ponderous key.
"Ben! Corporal! Donny! All of you--quick!"
"Ay, ay, sir. You're only just in time, for we're most smothered. What
does it all mean?"
"Don't talk! Follow me--guard-room. Enemy all in the court."
He led the way back, the men literally staggering after him, half
suffocated as they had been by the fumes of the powder, the explosion
having been so near their prison. But they revived moment by moment in
the pure air, and growing excited by the sounds that reached them from
the court-yard, they followed on along the lower passages till they
reached the crypt of the south-west tower, passed on to the stairway at
the base of the gate tower, and ascended unchallenged to the great
gate-way, where Roy dashed into the untenanted guard-room, and the men
rapidly armed themselves with weapons from the racks.
"Ready?" said Roy, in a whisper.
"Yes," came in a deep, excited growl.
"Back, then," cried Roy, "and we'll attack them in the rear."
He ranged his men in the shadow, the combatants being wildly engaged
amid a blaze of light, which prevented the movements of Roy's little
party being seen; and he was about to lead them back through the great
corridor to where they could dash out suddenly and make their diversion
in the rear, when Ben suddenly laid his hand upon the boy's arm, and ran
to one of the narrow slits of windows in the guard-room.
"Trampling of horses," he whispered, as he peered out, the glow upward
now lighting the other side of the moat. "General's men coming back,
sir. Take us up into the portcullis-room, and we must defend that and
keep it and the furnace-chamber to the death. They must not come in."
Roy grasped the position, knowing well enough that as soon as the
defenders knew of the return of their friends, they would admit them,
and the Cavaliers would suffer defeat.
Giving the word, he dashed up the spiral followed by his men, and as
they stood ready to defend the place to the last, and keep bridge and
portcullis as they were, he stepped up into the window and thrust out
his head, to see dimly a body of about fifty horsemen, who galloped up
to the edge of the moat.
"Halt!" shouted their leader. "No good: impossible. We must ride
round, dismount, and join Royland through the breach. Forward!"
"Halt!" shrieked Roy with all his force in his cry, and then in a voice
he did not know as his own, he yelled out, "Royland! Royland! God save
the king!"