had taken the unguarded fortress by surprise.

Down came the captain, William a-Larks, to whose negligence this
surprise was due, and made a bold and fierce assault on the invaders,
supported by a body of his men. But the English forced their way inward,
pushed back the defenders, surrounded the captain, and quickly struck
him to the earth with a mortal wound. Defence seemed hopeless. The
assailants had gained the gates and the outer court, dispersed the first
party of defenders, killed their captain, and were pushing their way
with shouts of triumph into the stronghold within. The main body of the
peasants were in the inner court, Big Ferre at their head, but it was
beyond reason to suppose that they could stand against this compact and
well-armed body of invaders.

Yet they had promised the regent to hold the place until death, and they
meant it.

"It is death fighting or death yielding," they said. "These men will
slay us without mercy; let us sell them our lives at a dear price."

"Gathering themselves discreetly together," says the chronicler, "they
went down by different gates, and struck out with mighty blows at the
English, as if they had been beating out their corn on the
threshing-floor; their arms went up and down again, and every blow dealt
out a mighty wound."

Big Ferre led a party of the defenders against the main body of the
English, pushing his way into the outer court where the captain had
fallen. When he saw his master stretched bleeding and dying on the
ground, the faithful fellow gave vent to a bitter cry, and rushed with
the rage of a lion upon the foe, wielding a great axe like a feather in
his hands.

The English looked with surprise and alarm on this huge fellow, who
topped them all in height by a head and shoulders, and who came forward
like a maddened bull, uttering short, hoarse cries of rage, while the
heavy axe quivered in his vigorous grasp. In a moment he was upon them,
striking such quick and deadly blows that the place before him was soon
void of living men. Of one man the head was crushed; of another the arm
was lopped off; a third was hurled back with a gaping wound. His
comrades, seeing the havoc he was making, were filled with ardor, and
seconded him well, pressing on the dismayed English and forcing them
bodily back. In an hour, says the chronicler, the vigorous fellow had
slain with his own hand eighteen of the foe, without counting the
wounded.

This was more than flesh