Hanotin’s men had already broken down the gate when Bertrand came galloping through the aspen wood. He had halted but a moment to cut down the two fellows who had been left to guard the horses, and who had drawn their swords on him and tried to give the alarm to their comrades on the causeway. Thanks to the din his own men were making, Hanotin had no warning of the rescue that was at hand.

TiphaÏne, who had climbed the tower with Jehanot when Hanotin’s horn had blown the first challenge, stood looking down in a species of stupor through the machicolations of the battlements at the mob of men struggling through the wreck of the twice-broken gate. They had forced up the portcullis, and were shouting with savage triumph, their shouts coming up to TiphaÏne like the snarling of wild beasts. She could see their bassinets and shoulder-plates and their thrust-out heels as they struggled to be first in through the entry.

The last men were still in view when she saw one of them clap his hand to the back of his neck, turn, and stare in astonishment across the moat. TiphaÏne, vividly receptive of all details in her dull terror, noticed a red patch of blood between the rim of the man’s steel cap and the edge of his gorget. He had been hit in the neck by a cross-bow bolt, and was shouting and gesticulating, calling back his comrades, who were crowding through the gate.

TiphaÏne was startled by a cry from old Jehanot. He was hopping from foot to foot, brandishing his cross-bow, his eyes shining out curiously above the bandage over his mouth and chin.

“Look! look!”

TiphaÏne followed the pointing of his hand, and understood whence the cross-bow bolt had flown. Through the aspen wood, with its last yellow leaves flickering in the sunlight, came Bertrand’s men, pressing forward on foot behind their captain, whose sword flashed as he cantered down on his great black horse. They came on in good order with their shields up, spears bristling, steady and silent.

TiphaÏne recognized the blue surcoat.

“It is Bertrand!” she said—“Bertrand du Guesclin!”

Jehanot was waving his cross-bow above his head.

“A rescue! a rescue! To the chapel, madame. There will be bloody work. Shut yourself in. I’ll bide here and watch.”

Hanotin’s men were crowding back under the arch of the gate, jostling each other, taken by surprise. Some were for meeting Bertrand upon the causeway, others for holding the tower and letting the portcullis fall. Hanotin, a giant with a face like raw meat, came pushing through the press, cursing his men, and shouldering them aside as a ship shoulders the waves.

“Out of the way! Out of the way! Let me get a glimpse at these gentlemen.”

He pushed through and had his desire—a vision of a wedge of shields and spears thrusting forward across the causeway.

Hanotin sprang back, brandishing his mace.

“Down with the grid! Curse these foul trees, the bridge is jammed.”

He swept his men back, and stood alone to hold the entry till they should have time to lower the portcullis. Bertrand saw that the need was imminent.

“St. Ives!—Du Guesclin!”

Hanotin snarled and swung his mace.

“Out, fools, out!”

There was a squeal of delight from the battlements above. Old Jehanot had toppled a loose stone over. It brushed Hanotin’s body, made him stagger, and broke in fragments at his feet. Before the free lance could recover Bertrand rushed on him, and knocked him over with a blow of the fist. Shouting, cursing, heaving, the whole rout went in over Hanotin as he struggled to rise. They drove the Monk’s men through the tower arch by sheer weight of numbers, burst into the court, and stood shouting and cheering as though gone mad.

Hanotin had picked himself up and was rallying his men. Furious at the way he had been wrested and trampled under foot, he stormed at his fellows, taunting them with having given way before a mob of footpads and boys. Bertrand’s free companions in their rush had carried the court-yard, but they had left the tower gate and guard-room in Hanotin’s hands.

The Monk, who was an inspired bully, and knew how to make the most of a situation, ordered the portcullis to be lowered—a piece of ostentatious bravado that he was soon to regret. The great grid came jerking down; they were to fight it out like cats in a cage. Hanotin bluffed beyond his powers when he thought to frighten Bertrand into a surrender.

“Steady, steady. Keep close together, and follow when I give the word. Let them drop the grid. They are stopping their own bolting-hole.”

Bertrand’s coolness heartened his men on the instant. They could see that he was smiling—smiling one of those grim and quiet smiles they had learned to treasure. Messire Bertrand knew his business. Guicheaux and Hopart watched him in silence, ready for the spring they knew was coming.

“Good-evening, brother. How is it to be—your mace against my sword?”

Hanotin ran his eyes over Bertrand’s figure, and shirked the challenge.

“Not so fast, sir,” he said; “I am too big for thee, and the game is ours. Throw down your arms, or—” And he drew the edge of his hand across his throat.

Bertrand laughed. His men were grinning and nudging one another, gloating at the way the free lance had shirked the challenge. Bertrand spoke a few words to them over his shoulder.

“As you will, brother,” he said, setting his sword swinging. “In, sirs, in! Notre Dame du Guesclin! Follow me!”

Hanotin’s men were the better armed, but Bertrand, who had the advantage of numbers, kept his fellows together, and broke Hanotin’s ranks at the first charge. It was rough-and-ready scrimmaging enough in the gathering darkness of the narrow court. Men shortened their swords, used poniards and gadded fists, grappling together, squirming and wriggling on the stones. Bertrand hunted out Hanotin, and hammered him while the sparks flew. The bully labored with his mace, puffing and grunting as he gave each blow. Twice wounded, he closed with Bertrand and tried to bear him down beneath his weight. Hanotin would have been wiser had he shirked the bear’s grip that had given Bertrand many a victory over the Breton wrestlers as a lad. The Monk went down with a crash that startled even the men who were struggling in the death grips round him. He lay still a moment, and then, heaving himself upon his hands and knees, wriggled away like a huge lizard into the thick of the press.

Bertrand sprang after him, but a sudden rush of his own men and a weakening of the Montfort party threw him sideways against the wall. Hopart, who was close at hand, helped Bertrand to his feet.

“Hurt, lording?”

“Hurt? Not a bit of it! On; they are losing heart!”

They were losing ground also, and had been driven back under the tower gateway. With the grid down there was no escape save into the guard-room, or up the newel stairway leading to the lesser solar, and by the gallery to the lord’s solar and the chapel. Hanotin, who had recovered his feet and picked up a fallen sword, shouted to his men to take to the stairway. There was a rush for the narrow entry, Hanotin and three others holding their ground while the rest tumbled pellmell up the stairs.

This was the very move Bertrand had dreaded, for he knew that TiphaÏne must be hidden somewhere in the rooms above. He had seen her head on the tower for an instant when he and his men had first charged for the gate. Hanotin’s free lances would be like wild beasts brought to bay in the place. They might kill the girl, or harm might come to her with men hunting one another through the darkening rooms. Calling off ten of his own fellows, he left Hopart and the rest to force the stairs, and doubled across the court-yard for the hall.

It had grown so dark that the great room was like a cavern. Bertrand groped through it, and climbed the stairs towards the solar. The door was slammed against him from within, and his shout of “TiphaÏne!” answered with curses. Setting his teeth, he threw his weight against the door, broke it, and went sprawling, with rattling harness, into the blackness of the room.

In an instant two of Hanotin’s men were on him, trying to stab him in the dark. Bertrand kicked out right and left, caught one gentleman by the ankle and brought him down backward with a crash. There was a rush and a great shouting of “Lights!—lights!” The room seemed full of tumbling, struggling shapes. Furniture was overturned, whirled away, and broken. Men were grappling and stabbing haphazard in the gloom, cursing the darkness and calling to one another.

Light streamed in suddenly. The chapel door had been burst open by two men who had fallen against it, and were now wrestling together on the floor. Bertrand, scrambling up, with a poniard wound in his forearm, stood back against the wall and looked round him. Three men were struggling on the bed, a confused tangle of arms and legs, while at the far end of the solar Guicheaux and several more were holding back the fellows whom they had driven into the gallery leading to the tower. Bertrand could hear Hopart and the rest fighting their way up the stairway to the lesser solar above the gate.

A den of horror, brute force, and death the place seemed as Bertrand leaned against the wall and recovered his breath. He turned and saw the two men struggling by the chapel door. The bigger of the pair had the other under him, and was driving his dagger into the agonized wretch’s throat. The victor scrambled up from the body, shook himself, and looked round with his teeth a-gleam like a dog at bay. Bertrand recognized Hanotin by the beard.

“Hallo, brother—you are there! Good!”

Hanotin snarled and darted through the chapel doorway, swinging the door to after him. Bertrand dashed it open, and stepped over the body of the man the Monk had stabbed. A woman’s cry rang out through the chapel. Before the altar stood Hanotin, holding TiphaÏne by the bosom with one great paw, and brandishing his poniard with the other.

“Off, dog, off!”

Hanotin spat like a cat, and forced TiphaÏne down across his thigh.

“A truce, or the knife goes home.”

Bertrand faltered in his fury and stood looking at TiphaÏne, Hanotin’s hand gripping her bosom, her hair falling down in disorder as he held her across his knee. Bertrand could not see her face. She was struggling a little, her bosom heaving under the man’s paw, her hands stretched out to catch the blow.

“Loose your hold!”

Hanotin showed his teeth and grinned. The ruse was a desperate one, but he had Bertrand baffled for the moment.

“No, no, messire. You see my terms. Curse you!—she-dog—”

TiphaÏne had seized her chance and twisted herself free from Hanotin’s grip. She slipped and fell upon the altar steps, and rolled down them to the floor. Hanotin sprang forward, but Bertrand was too quick for him. There was the whistling of a sword, the clang of a helmet, and the Monk’s bassinet ran blood. He staggered and fell, with TiphaÏne beneath him, and in his blind death agony tried to stab her as he lay. Bertrand, throwing down his sword, seized Hanotin by the sword-belt. He lifted him from TiphaÏne and swung him away upon the floor, and in the fury of his vengeance dashed his mailed heel again and again into the man’s face. Life was over for Hanotin. He had given his last blow.

Bertrand turned towards TiphaÏne, who was half lying below the steps, supporting herself upon her hands. She was dazed, shocked out of her senses for the moment, with the Monk’s blood dyeing her hair and clothes. She looked at Bertrand and gave a little gasp of pain.

He was bending over her on the instant, the distorting anger gone from his face. He took her in his arms and felt the quivering of her body. She clung to him for a moment like a frightened child, staring in his face, her eyes full of the horror of Hanotin’s death.

“Bertrand, my God! oh—let me breathe—air, air—”

He let her lean against the altar, all the savagery gone out of him, his face twitching.

“Are you hurt? TiphaÏne—”

She shook her head, and then pressed her hands over her ears as though to shut out the brutal babel that came from the dark rooms and passage-ways. Bertrand could hear Hopart shouting in the solar, “Kill! Kill!”

“Bertrand, Bertrand, for God’s sake, tell them to spare the wretches!”

She sank to her knees and laid her head against the cold stone-work of the altar, pressing her hands in horror over her ears.

Bertrand lifted a strand of her hair, kissed it, and then turned to end the slaughter.