the
stockade at some man who came close to them and was spied, or at
those who tried to help their comrades to climb. The whole place
was full of yells and shouting.

But it was harder work at the gate, for there the foemen were more
densely packed before us, and they seemed to climb in an unending
stream. More than one fell inside the gate, and there lay still;
but none had won his way to the ground alive, nor had we yet lost a
man. The loss was all on the side of the attack.

Then at last the men at the gate drew back for a time; but from the
side attacks came a new danger. With spear butt and seax they were
trying to undermine the stockade, and one could hear the creaking
of the stout timbers as they tried to tear them down. It would have
gone hardly with us had there been but a few more men, or if these
had brought pick and spade with them.

As it was, that attempt did not last long. Into the crowd of men
who worked the heavy javelins fell, and through the timbering the
reddened spears went and came, driving at last the foe to safer
distance. And so the first attack ended, and for all that Gymbert
from the gate tried to urge them on, his men stood sullenly in the
deep ditch and under the gate, where we could not well reach them,
save by casting javelins and darts high into the air, that they
might pitch among them; but there were few throwing weapons to
spare.

"He would have done better to attack at one point only," said
Jefan, sitting down on the rampart above the gate. "He might have
overwhelmed us so, for he has men enough."

His brother laughed.

"There is a difference between us in this way," he said, "and it is
a great one: there is little fight in his men, and we must needs
fight our best. Listen! they are passing some word round."

So it was, for there fell a silence on the humming men below us,
and we could hear muttered words from one to another. Then the
attack came again from the same three places, but I thought it was
not pushed home as at first. Nor did it last so long. In a few
minutes men began to get out of the ditch and away down the
hillside while the Welsh were too busy to shoot at them. There they
scattered, and stood and watched. And then the attack on the gate
ceased, and back the foe went.

"After them, and scourge them home to their mistress," shouted
Kynan, leaping down to the gateway, where his men did but wait some
word which should tell them to throw it open for a sally.