er which of you is the bravest?
I think Cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle, and I don't want
to play."

"It _isn't_"--Robert was beginning sternly, but Anthea interrupted--

"Oh yes, you do," she said coaxingly; "it's a very nice game, really,
because they can't possibly get in, and if they do the women and
children are always spared by civilised armies."

"But are you quite, quite sure they _are_ civilised?" asked Jane,
panting. "They seem to be such a long time ago."

"Of course they are." Anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow
window. "Why, look at the little flags on their lances, how bright they
are--and how fine the leader is! Look, that's him--isn't it, Robert?--on
the gray horse."

Jane consented to look, and the scene was almost too pretty to be
alarming. The green turf, the white tents, the flash of pennoned lances,
the gleam of armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic--it was
just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and
when the trumpeters stopped for breath the children could hear the
cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices.

A trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat, which now seemed very
much narrower than at first, and blew the longest and loudest blast they
had yet heard. When the blaring noise had died away, a man who was with
the trumpeter shouted--

"What ho, within there!" and his voice came plainly to the garrison in
the gate-house.

"Hullo there!" Robert bellowed back at once.

"In the name of our Lord the King, and of our good lord and trusty
leader Sir Wulfric de Talbot, we summon this castle to surrender--on
pain of fire and sword and no quarter. Do ye surrender?"

"_No_" bawled Robert; "of course we don't! Never, _Never, NEVER_!"

The man answered back--

"Then your fate be on your own heads."

"Cheer," said Robert in a fierce whisper. "Cheer to show them we aren't
afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip,
hip, hooray! Again--Hip, hip, hooray! One more--Hip, hip, hooray!" The
cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent
them strength and depth.

There was another shout from the camp across the moat--and then the
beleaguered fortress felt that the attack had indeed begun.

It was getting rather dark in the room above the great gate, and Jane
took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset _couldn't_ be
far off now.

"The moat is dreadfully thin,"