slower pace than before. They had gone but a short distance when the
arrows of the archers in the outwork and the bolts of the cross-bows
worked by the men-at-arms there, began to fall among them. So true was the
aim of the archers that scarce a shaft was wasted. At the distance at
which they were shooting they did not aim at the knights, whose vizors and
coats of mail could not have been pierced, but shot at the commonalty,
whose faces and throats were for the most part unprotected. Man after man
fell, and the cross-bow bolts also told heavily upon the crowd. They had
come down but a short distance farther when Long Tom, and the archers with
him on the wall, began to send their arrows thick and fast, and the
machines hurled heavy stones with tremendous force among them. A moment
later the French broke and fled up the slope again, leaving some fifty of
their number stretched on the ground. The knights followed more slowly.
When they reached the crest a group of them gathered around Sir Clugnet de
Brabant.

"By my faith," the latter said bitterly, "we have reckoned without our
host, Sir Knights. We came to shear, but in good sooth we seem more likely
to go back shorn. Truly those knaves shoot marvellously; scarce an arrow
went astray."

"As I mentioned to you, Sir Clugnet," Sir Hugh de Fruges said, "Sir
Eustace brought with him from England five-and-twenty bowmen, and I heard
tell from men who had seen them trying their skill at targets that they
were in no wise inferior to those with whom we have before had to deal to
our cost."

"Truly ye did so, Sir Hugh; but the matter made no impression upon my
mind, except as a proof that the knight's inclinations were still with
England, and that it were well that his castle were placed in better