on,
well-nigh to the cloister, and seeming even still to be pouring down
from the woods. Ah me! What a black hell of sin lay 'neath those faces,
like an ugly, stormy sea below us, and what a motley of lost souls of
every race. Dark Moors were there in plenty, with rich dress and shining
mail; black Africans with blubber lips and mats of furzy hair; sleek
Jews slithering in and out the groups, inciting to devil's work; figures
of nobles and gentlemen of France or Espagne, dishonoured and merged in
the depth of the lowest scum there present; great Saxon churls and
Danes, standing stern and resolute, but barbarous, as lions in the ranks
of jackals and wolves!

CHAPTER VII.

Of _Le Grand Sarrasin_, and of the renewed attack upon _Vale Castle_. Of
my first deeds of arms, and how the _Moors_ were beaten back.

What they waited for we guessed not, till a great black horse came
cantering over the plain, and a whisper went through the ramparts: "The
Grand Sarrasin himself!" And he it was. He had his visor down. For none,
so men said, had ever seen his face; and with excellent management of
the steed of Araby, whereon he sat, drew up straight in front of the
long rank of villains that he led. A great figure he sat on his horse,
but swift and ready in his movements, though stout and heavy, and
exceedingly knightly, as he rested with one hand on the beast's haunch.

The ranks were no more in disorder, and the sounds ceased. Side by side
they stood, erect and deadly. Each eye on him. Each head steady. It was
a disciplined host. It was a band of music that he ruled with the sweep
of his hand. We understood how the pirates of the Norman seas were all
at one. They had found their master, and knew naught but his will.

Soon we saw the army break into three, and come forth to assault us at
different points. Of the southeastern bastion, where I was stationed, I
can only tell. What happened otherwhere I only know by hearsay. There we
had some forty of our complement of men to relieve one another with the
stones, and shoot their arrows, and be prepared for service with the
broadsword should need come. And great prongs we had very swiftly to
dislodge the ladders, which with sore effort they strove to thrust into
the thick cement 'twixt stone and stone. And once or twice when the
ladder held, there was quick work pouring hot pitch on their heads. Hour
by hour they strove on, caring not for defeat, for when men fell wounded
and hu