turn in going up and helping to bring down wounded men. As the time
went on several yawning gaps appeared in the walls. The courtyard
was strewn with fragments of masonry, and the pages were ordered
to keep under shelter of the wall of the castle unless summoned on
duty. Indeed, the courtyard had now become a more dangerous station
than the wall itself; for not only did the cannon shot fly through
the breaches, but fragments of bricks, mortar, and rubbish flew
along with a force that would have been fatal to anything struck.

Some of the pages were big fellows of seventeen or eighteen years
old, who had been serving for some years under Morgan and Williams,
and would soon be transferred into the ranks.

"I like not this sort of fighting," one of them said. "It is all
very well when it comes to push of pike with the Spaniards, but to
remain here like chickens in a coop while they batter away at us
is a game for which I have no fancy. What say you, Master Vickars?"

"Well, it is my first experience, Somers, and I cannot say that
it is agreeable. I do not know whether I should like hand to hand
fighting better; but it seems to me at present that it would be
certainly more agreeable to be doing something than to be sitting
here and listening to the falls of the pieces of masonry and the
whistling of the balls. I don't see that they will be any nearer
when they have knocked this place to pieces. They have no boats,
and if they had, the guns on the city wall would prevent their using
them; besides, when the bridge of boats is removed they could do
nothing if they got here."

Towards evening a council was held, all the principal officers