hed two or three fleet footed runners through
the passage to find the king, and tell him that the besiegers were
making progress, and to pray him to come to his assistance. Two
days passed, and the breach was now fairly practicable, but the
moat, fifty feet wide, still barred the way to the besiegers. Archie
had noticed that for two or three days no water had come down from
above, and had no doubt that they had diverted the course of the
river. Upon the day after the breach was completed the besiegers
advanced in great force up the stream from below.

"They are going to try to cut the dam," Archie said to Sandy; "place
every man who can draw a bow on that side of the castle."

As the English approached a rain of arrows was poured into them,
but covering themselves with their shields and with large mantlets
formed of hurdles covered with hides they pressed forward to the
dam. Here those who had brought with them picks and mattocks set
to work upon the dam, the men with mantlets shielding them from
the storm of arrows, while numbers of archers opened fire upon the
defenders. Very many were killed by the Scottish arrows, but the
work went on. A gap was made through the dam. The water, as it rushed
through, aided the efforts of those at work; and after three hours'
labour and fighting the gap was so far deepened that the water in
the moat had fallen eight feet. Then, finding that this could now
be waded, the assailants desisted, and drew off to their camp.

A council was held that evening in the castle as to whether
the hold should be abandoned at once or whether one attack on the
breach should be withstood. It was finally determined that the
breach should be held. The steep sides of the moat, exposed by the
subsidence of the water, were slippery and difficult. The force in
the castle was amply sufficient at once to man the breach and to
furnish archers for the walls on either side, while in the event
of the worst, were the breach carried by the English, the defenders
might fall back to the central keep, and thence make their way
through the passage. Had it not been for the possibility of an
early arrival of the king to their relief all agreed that it would
be as well to evacuate the castle at once, as this in the end must
fall, and every life spent in its defence would thus be a useless
sacrifice. As, however, troops might at any moment appear, it was
determined to hold the castle until the last.

The next morning a