"Good!" said Piers Minor, heartily. "Although, indeed, I could never have done it. Yet I must bind and gag you," he added.

The boy pouted. "No; I will not have you touch me." He tried by a sudden movement to slip under Piers Minor's detaining hand. The shock displaced his cap, a fastening gave way at the same instant, and a mass of long, black hair tumbled down upon the youth's shoulders. Even then Piers Minor, being of masculine slow wit, might not have guessed the truth but for a bright blush that overspread brow and cheek, a confession that even his dull senses could not misinterpret.

"A woman!" he said, confusedly, and blushed as unrestrainedly in his turn.

Beholding his embarrassment, Nanna was relieved of her own.

"You will have to trust me, you see," she said, coldly.

The abashed Piers Minor murmured an indistinct assent.

"And you will not forget my message?"

"No, no! He shall have it at the earliest possible moment."

"Very good--it is understood, then. Now you may go."

Piers Minor had not a word to say. He had been meditating upon a thousand possible explanations, excuses, apologies, and his tongue would not utter one of them. He accepted his orders meekly, but as he turned to go he managed to stammer out, "Of course--to meet again."

Nanna, to her own infinite amazement, answered with a look that meant yes, and knew that he had not failed to so understand it. As she walked over to the Citadel Square she could feel that he was standing where she had left him and looking after her. She would have turned to fittingly rebuke behavior so indecorous, but something told her that her insulted dignity would be better saved by removing it to a greater distance.

Nanna entered the Citadel Square after some parley with the sentinels on the walls, who grumbled at the trouble to which they were put to let down a rope-ladder; but, being a daughter of the Doomsmen, she could not be denied.

A little crowd of women and elderly men gathered about an ox-cart in the centre of the square attracted her attention. They were listening to a speaker who, standing upright in the wagon-body, was haranguing them earnestly. Nanna recognized him--Prosper, the priest.

It was the old story--repentance, the wrath of the Shining One, and the imminence of the judgment. The men of the garrison, absorbed in their preparations for defence, paid no heed; only this handful of old men and fearful women, who crept a little closer together as they listened and sought one another's hands. "To-day, to-day, even to-day, and Doom is fallen, is fallen!"

A disquieting thought flashed into Nanna's mind, the remembrance of those carefully arranged broken wires in the empty house not more than a block away from the Citadel Square. Then of those other wires in the temple of the Shining One, spluttering their wicked-looking sparks. She strained her ears to catch the humming drone of the engines in the House of Power, but there was no sound to be heard--they could not be running.

"Yet there will be mischief worked to-night if the priest has his way,"

said Nanna to herself, and shook her black-polled head safely. "I almost wish that I had told _him_ of that, too." And then, unaccountably, she blushed again, for all that it was dark and no one was looking at her.

XXVI

THE SONG OF THE SWORD

It did not take long for Constans to arouse and collect his men; tired of inaction, they were only too glad to respond to the summons. And at the last, Constans, unable to withstand the entreaty in Red Oxenford's eyes, ordered his release.

"But, with the others, you must wait upon my word," he said, sternly, and Oxenford, fearful above all things of being left behind, gave ready assent to the condition.

Under the south rampart of the citadel they halted. There were but two guards on duty here, and they were easily surprised and secured before they could give an alarm. As one by one the rest of the company ascended the scaling-ladder, they were ordered to throw themselves prone on the flat top of the wall, to await the final signal. Over at the north gate the clamor grew momentarily--there were blows of axes on wood, and clash of arms, and the confused crying of many voices.

"The snapping-turtle must be at his work," said Constans to himself.

"Wait until his teeth show through that flimsy wooden screen."

Piers Major had advanced promptly upon receiving the message brought by his son. The chances of a frontal attack had already been discussed between him and Constans, and the latter had devised a formation which, in theory at least, should make such an undertaking feasible. In its basic idea it was the Roman _testudo_, described by Julius Caesar in the Gallic Commentaries. The phalanx of marching men were protected from arrows, darts, and ordinary missiles by a continuous covering formed of their ox-hide shields, the latter being held horizontally above the head and interlocked. The overlapping shields bore a fanciful resemblance to the scaly carapace of a tortoise--hence its name; and, so long as the essential principle of unity of action was maintained, it might be reckoned an effective engine of warfare.

As the _testudo_ moved down the Palace Road and towards the wooden barrier of the north gate, it was to be observed that the front-rank men and the file-closers carried their shields in the ordinary fashion, in order to ward off horizontally flying missiles. Once under the shelter of the walls, the leaders would immediately discard their now useless bucklers and begin to ply their axes, protected from overhead assaults by the overlapping shields of their comrades. The formation advanced steadily; there was a suggestion of terrific irresistibility in the very slowness of its progress; to the eager fancy it might have been the veritable recreation of some prehistoric monster, the illusion being heightened by the torchlight that flickered uncertainly over the rounded bellies of the shields of greenish leather and was reflected redly from their copper bosses.

The defence had been quick to recognize the character of the assault, and had done their best to repel it. The catapults had been brought into action, and their huge projectiles hurtled constantly through the air, but for the most part innocuously, the machines not being in the best of order and the artillerymen unpractised in their use. It was not until the _testudo_ had advanced to within fifty yards that a shot discharged by a machine, worked by Quinton Edge in person, took effect, the missile striking the _testudo_ on the left wing and disabling three men. Before the advantage could be followed up the files had been closed again and the formation had advanced so far that the catapults became useless, it being impossible to depress them beyond a certain angle. The front rank had now reached the barrier, and the axes fell furiously upon the wooden leaves of the gate. The Doomsmen on the walls renewed the attack with hand-weapons, the slingers and archers hurling their missiles vertically downward and the spearmen watching their opportunity for an effective body-thrust. The affair would be short and sharp, for the _testudo_ could not be expected to hold its position for longer than a few minutes--it was not in flesh and blood to withstand indefinitely that fierce and deadly shower. Already there were gaps in the protective roof of shields--impossible to repair, for in that close-packed mass the bodies of the wounded and dead impeded the progress of those who would otherwise have taken their places. Yet the struggle went stubbornly on.

A sharp-eyed youth who was lying next to Constans touched him on the arm, directing his attention to a squad of the defenders who were working to dislodge one of the massive coping-stones of the gateway arch. Already it was oscillating under the heave of the levers; if it fell, a score of men might be crushed beneath its weight, and the destruction of the _testudo_ would be a certainty. Constans raised his rifle. It was a long shot, but he could not wait to take deliberate aim; he fired.

The bullet had found its mark, for one man was fallen where he stood and another nursed a broken wrist. The workers at the gate were thrown into confusion and the stone settled back into its bed. The assailants redoubled their efforts, and the thunder of the axe-blows became continuous.

"Through! they are through!" shouted Constans, and sprang down upon the banquette. In his excitement he entirely forgot about the new weapon that had but just now rendered such signal service; he threw aside the rifle for the more familiar sword. And he noticed that his followers had acted under the same primitive impulse; the fire-stick might be given the honor of drawing first blood, but it was for cold steel to finish the work.

Shoulder to shoulder the men raced across the square to the gate. The attempt to block up the passage, had failed for lack of time, and the Stockaders were pouring through pellmell, intent on securing foothold in the open. The Doomsmen, forsaking the now useless walls, met them man to man; there was the clash of opposing bucklers, and through the din pierced the keen, clear ring of blades in play--the Song of the Sword.

The diversion in the rear came at the opportune moment. The Doomsmen had so far greatly out-numbered the Stockaders, and the latter were being forced back into the vaulted passage, thereby blocking it against the main body of their comrades. But now the Doomsmen, attacked from behind, were obliged to devote part of their attention elsewhere, the pressure at the gateway was relieved, and reinforcements, with Piers Major and Piers Minor at their head, made their way through and took active part in the struggle. Even then the defenders were slightly superior numerically to the invading party, and the issue remained in doubt.

Constans felt himself carried into the thickest of the press; he fought on mechanically, thrusting and cutting with the rest, and yet hardly conscious of what he was doing. His mind would not work easily; he found himself dwelling upon inconsequential trifles--what had become of his cap? and how tall was that big fellow with the broad-axe who seemed so anxious to come to close quarters with him? He was not in the least afraid, but he wondered if it were possible for him to come out of all this alive. It seemed unthinkable that the ring of steel surrounding him could be broken by any mortal power; sooner or later it must contract and crush him. Even the momentary vision of Ulick, stripped to the waist and with a broad, red streak across his forehead, failed to arouse him.

He could think only of a thresher with his flail as Ulick, bludgeoning right and left, won clear from the press of Stockader foes surrounding him and rejoined his own ranks. A confused idea that he wanted to speak to Ulick suddenly oppressed Constans; he half started to follow him.

Piers Minor, at his elbow, held him back and shouted a caution.

"Keep up your guard, man, or that big chap will have you yet! And let them come to you--don't rush them!"

In a hand-to-hand encounter there can be but little opportunity for strategy or leadership, except in the purely physical sense. Yet, on either side, the men fought as though animated by a common instinct, the Doomsmen striving to force the Stockaders back into the gateway passage, and the latter endeavoring to cut their way bodily through the mass of the defenders and so divide its strength. For a while the tide began to run with the allies, and the Doomsmen were obliged to fall back slowly towards the interior barricade on the east side of the square that protected the women and children. Constans, panting from his exertions, snatched at this moment of respite to regain his breath. A moment before he had stumbled against a small keg that was rolling about under the feet of the struggling men; this he up-ended and mounted for a better look around.

It was true; the Doomsmen were really giving way, and the victory was all but won. Yet not quite, for even as he gazed the onrushing line of the triumphant Stockaders sagged backward at the centre, and the Doomsman yell broke out. What was it? What had happened?

Emerging from the portal of the White Tower came half a dozen bearers carrying between them a chair in which sat a man--an old man with a shock of snow-white hair covering his massive head. And those shoulders needed no identification from the familiar wolf-skin that lay across them. This could be none other than Dom Gillian, Chief and Overlord of the Doomsmen, Father of the Gray People. He wore no armor and carried no shield, but his hand gripped a great war-mace studded with silver nails, fit emblem of the authority supreme that its own weight had created.

But that had been full half a century ago.

The old man made a movement as though to rise. Two of the attendants attempted to assist him, but he waved them back. Ah, the wonder of it as that huge bulk reared itself to full height! An ordinary man might stand comfortably under his out-stretched arm and barely join the tips of his fingers in measuring around the monster's girth. But there was more than mere bigness with which to reckon. The close observer might notice that his armpits and the corresponding parts under the knee were not hollow, as is ordinarily the case, but were filled with a solid mass of muscle and tendon. And this was Dom Gillian, with the weight of ninety-odd years upon his back. What manner of man must he have been in the noonday of his strength!

As though by common consent the conflict came to an abrupt end; the two lines drew apart and silence fell between them. Dom Gillian took two or three forward steps. He seemed to be uncertain of where to plant his feet, as is the natural consequent when one has not walked for a long time; but once squarely set, he stood solidly--like a column of masonry.

The bent shoulders had straightened up and the chest had filled out; there was no evidence of decrepitude in the ease with which he manipulated his ponderous mace, swinging it from side to side in great, slow circles. Only Constans noticed that he kept his head turned constantly in one direction, where there was a great flare of light, a dozen cressets and link-torches burning together. Could it be that his eyesight had failed save for the mere distinction between light and darkness? It might be well to know surely, and, stepping down from his vantage-point, Constans forced his way to the front. Quinton Edge was speaking, and Constans listened with the rest.

"If there is one among you," he said, with smooth distinctness, "who thinks himself a man, let him stand forth and make answer to our father, Dom Gillian, face to face, so that our lord may particularly inquire concerning these dogs of Stockaders who dare to show a naked blade in the inmost citadel of Doom the Forbidden. You have tracked the gray wolf to his lair, now send you out a gallant who will clip his claws."

Constans, intent upon his theory, noticed that Dom Gillian had turned his head in the direction of Quinton Edge's voice when he first began to speak, but almost immediately his attention had flagged and his eyes had wandered back to the lights. Now, as Quinton Edge stopped, the old man's face changed suddenly, the eyebrows contracting and the jaw setting itself rigidly. It seemed as though he were about to speak, but there was only that murmur in his throat, hoarse and unintelligible. Then Constans understood that this was no longer a man that stood before them, but merely a wild beast in leash. The monster seemed annoyed by the silence. He moved forward uncertainly for a few steps and stood still; one could hear him purring softly like a big cat.

"We are waiting," said Quinton Edge.

A man brushed by Constans and stepped into the open. It was Oxenford the "Red."

"This belongs to me--to none other," he said, and looked about him.

No man moved.

"I am ready," he continued, and threw his upper coat on the ground behind him. Constans stood for an instant at Oxenford's ear.