But the opening of this second phase of the combat brought one great misfortune and discouragement to the English. Bambro’, like the others, had undone his visor, but with his mind full of many cares, he had neglected to make it fast again. There was an opening an inch broad betwixt it and the beaver. As the two lines met, the left-handed Breton squire, Alain de Karanais, caught sight of Bambro’s face, and in an instant thrust his short spear through the opening. The English leader gave a cry of pain and fell on his knees, but staggered to his feet again, too weak to raise his shield. As he stood exposed, the Breton knight, Geoffrey Dubois the Strong, struck him such a blow with his ax that he beat in the whole breastplate with the breast behind it. Bambro’ fell dead upon the ground, and for a few minutes a fierce fight raged round his body.
Then the English drew back, sullen and dogged, bearing Bambro’ with them, and the Bretons, breathing hard, gathered again in their own quarter. At the same instant the three prisoners picked up such weapons as were scattered upon the grass and ran over to join their own party.
“Nay, nay!” cried Knolles, raising his visor and advancing. “This may not be. You have been held to mercy when we might have slain you, and by the Virgin, I will hold you dishonoured, all three, if you stand not back.”
“Say not so, Robert Knolles,” Evan Cheruel answered. “Never yet has the word dishonour been breathed with my name; but I should count myself fainéant if I did not fight beside my comrades when chance has made it right and proper that I should do so.”
“By Saint Cadoc! he speaks truly,” croaked Beaumanoir, advancing in front of his men. “You are well aware, Robert, that it is the law of war and the usage of chivalry that if the knight to whom you have surrendered is himself slain, the prisoners thereby become released.”
There was no answer to this, and Knolles, weary and spent, returned to his comrades.
“I would that we had slain them,” said he. “We have lost our leader, and they have gained three men by the same stroke.”
“If any more lay down their arms, it is my order that you slay them forthwith,” said Croquart, whose bent sword and bloody armour showed how manfully he had borne himself in the fray. “And now, comrades, do not be heavy hearted because we have lost our leader. Indeed, his rhymes of Merlin have availed him little. By the three kings of Almain! I can teach you what is better than an old woman’s prophecies, and that is that you should keep your shoulders together and your shields so close that none can break between them. Then you will know what is on either side of you, and you can fix your eyes upon the front. Also, if any be so weak or wounded that he must sink his hands, his comrades on right and left can bear him up. Now advance all together in God’s name, for the battle is still ours if we bear ourselves like men.”
In a solid line the English advanced, while the Bretons ran forward as before to meet them. The swiftest of these was a certain squire, Geoffrey Poulart, who bore a helmet which was fashioned as a cock’s head, with high comb above, and long pointed beak in front pierced with the breathing-holes. He thrust with his sword at Calverly, but Belford, who was the next in the line, raised his giant club and struck him a crushing blow from the side. He staggered, and then pushing forth from the crowd, he ran round and round in circles as one whose brain is stricken, the blood dripping from the holes of his brazen beak. So for a long time he ran, the crowd laughing and cock-crowing at the sight, until at last he stumbled and fell stone-dead upon his face. But the fighters had seen nothing of his fate, for desperate and unceasing was the rush of the Bretons and the steady advance of the English line.
For a time it seemed as if nothing would break it, but gap-toothed Beaumanoir was a general as well as a warrior. While his weary, bleeding, hard-breathing men still flung themselves upon the front of the line, he himself, with Raguenel, Tentiniac, Alain de Karanais, and Dubois rushed round the flank and attacked the English with fury from behind. There was a long and desperate melee, until once more the heralds, seeing the combatants stand gasping and unable to strike a blow, rode in and called yet another interval of truce.
But in those few minutes while they had been assaulted upon both sides the losses of the English party had been heavy. The Anglo-Breton D’Ardaine had fallen before Beaumanoir’s sword, but not before he had cut deeply into his enemy’s shoulder. Sir Thomas Walton, Richard of Ireland one of the squires, and Hulbitée the big peasant had all fallen before the mace of the dwarf Raguenel or the swords of his companions. Some twenty men were still left standing upon either side, but all were in the last state of exhaustion, gasping, reeling, hardly capable of striking a blow.
It was strange to see them as they staggered, with many a lurch and stumble, toward each other once again, for they moved like drunken men, and the scales of their neck-armour and joints were as red as fishes’ gills when they raised them. They left foul wet footprints behind them on the green grass as they moved forward once more to their endless contest.
Beaumanoir, faint with the drain of his blood and with a tongue of leather, paused as he advanced.
“I am fainting, comrades,” he cried. “I must drink.”
“Drink your own blood, Beaumanoir!” cried Dubois, and the weary men all croaked together in dreadful laughter.
But now the English
