They pressed forward into the opening made in the line and thought they had now turned the rear of the army; but everywhere they found walls of spears and halberds. John Borluut now quickly closed the wings of his division, and thus his five thousand men formed a compact circle, and the thousand Frenchmen were caught as in a net. Then began a fearful slaughter; for a quarter of an hour they were hacking, slashing, piercing, and trampling down one another; horses and men lay in helpless confusion on the ground, shrieking, howling, neighing—yet they heard nothing, spoke nothing; but proceeded In silence with their work of death.
Raoul de Nesle continued a long time fighting over the dead bodies of his soldiers, though covered with wounds and besprinkled with the blood of his gallant followers; his death, he saw, was inevitable. John Borluut beheld the heroic knight with profound sympathy and compassion, and cried to him:
"Surrender, Messire Raoul; I would fain not see you die!"
But Raoul was beside himself with rage and despair; he heard, indeed, the words of Borluut clearly, and an emotion of thankfulness touched his heart; but the reproach of the seneschal had filled him with such bitter vexation that he no longer desired to live. He raised his hand and made a sign to John Borluut, as if to take a last farewell of him, and then, the same moment, struck dead two of the men of Ghent. At length, a blow from a club stretched him lifeless on the corpses of his brethren in arms. Many other knights, whose horses had been slain under them, would fain have surrendered; but no one listened to them—not a solitary Frenchman escaped alive from the net.
Meanwhile the battle raged with equal fury all along the line. Here was heard a shout: "Noel! Noel! Mountjoy St. Denis!" and this was an intimation that at that point the French had gained some advantage; and there the cry: "Flanders! the Lion! all that is French is false! Strike home! to the death!" rose in mighty peals heavenward—a sign that there some body of French troops was broken and routed.
The Groningen brook ran with blood, and was choked with the bodies of the slain. The mournful wail of the dying was scarcely drowned by the clash of arms; it was heard, low and continuous, like the roll of distant thunder, above the noise of the fight. Spears and clubs flew in pieces; in front of the line the dead lay in crowded heaps. The wounded had no chance of escape; no one thought of rendering them any assistance; and they were either stifled in the marsh, or trampled miserably to death beneath the hoofs of the horses. Hugo van Arckel meanwhile had penetrated with his eight hundred soldiers to the very centre of the French army, and was so surrounded by the enemy that the Flemings had lost sight of him altogether. They fought too valiantly and kept together too firmly to allow the enemy to break their small but compact mass; around them lay numbers of the French, and whoso dared to come near them expiated his temerity by death. At length he fought his way to the banner of Navarre, and wrenched it from the hands of the standard-bearer. The Navarrese, wild with rage, turned upon him, and laid many of his followers low; but Hugo defended the captured banner so well that the French could not retake it. He had already returned very near to the Flemish camp, when Louis de Forest struck him so tremendous a blow on the left shoulder that his arm was severed, and hung supported only by the shirt-of-mail. The blood gushed in streams from the wound, and the paleness of death overspread his features; but yet his grasp of the banner was unrelaxed. Louis de Forest was slain by some Flemings, and Hugo van Arckel reached the centre of the Flemish camp, gathered his ebbing strength to utter once more the cry, "Flanders! the Lion!" but his voice failed him, his life's blood was drained, and he sank, still grasping the conquered standard, to rise no more.
On the left wing, in front of Messire Guy's division, the conflict was yet more fierce and deadly. James de Chatillon charged the Guilds of Furnes with several thousand horse, and had cut down many hundreds of them. Eustachius Sporkyn lay grievously wounded behind the line, and employed his remaining strength in cheering on his men and urging them to hold their ground; but the impetuosity of the onset was too great—they were compelled to retreat. Followed by a large number of horsemen, De Chatillon broke the line; and the fight was continued over the prostrate Sporkyn, whose sufferings were soon ended beneath the tramp of the cavalry.
Adolf van Nieuwland alone remained with Guy and his standard-bearer; they were now cut off from the army, and their death seemed certain. De Chatillon made most strenuous efforts to get possession of the great standard of Flanders; but, although Segher Lonke, who bore it, had been many times thrown down, De Chatillon could not succeed in his attempt: he raged around it, and urged on his men, and dealt his blows in every direction upon the three invincible Flemings. Doubtless these could not long have continued to defend themselves against
