"Wilfrid, what is it all?" she cried. "Gymbert has gathered some men, and is trying to make Jefan give us up," I said, knowing it was best to tell her plainly. "But you need have no fear; this place is strong, and the man cannot have any following worth naming." "There will be fighting?" "I think there will be little; but the arrows may come over the rampart, and you must keep under cover." "Shall you take part if there is any?" "Why, of course," said I, laughing; "it is for you." She looked at me, and I know that for a moment she had a mind to beg me not to fight; but that she could not do, and so she only smiled a wan smile and bade me have a care. So I bent and kissed her hand, and she went back into the hut. Sighard was calling to her to come and tell him what all the turmoil was. Then I hurried to where Jefan stood on the works by the gate, whence one could see all over the camp, and half round the hillside as well. Not a shred of mist was left, and it was as glorious a morning as one could see; only it was hotter than the wont of a Maytime morning, and over the southward hung a heavy, white-topped cloud bank, with a promise of thunder in its pile. Not that I noted it now, but I had done so. From the ramparts there was more than enough to keep my eyes on the hillside. Up the steep came three bodies of men, to right and left, where the hill was sharpest, and straight for the gate, where there was a long, even slope ending in a platform, as it were, before it. Gymbert himself headed this company on foot, and men whose names the princes seemed to scorn altogether led the others. Altogether there were not less than a hundred and fifty men; but as they drew nearer I saw that they were not at all the sort of force with which I should hope to take so strongly stockaded a place as this. Outlaws, runaway thralls, and such-like masterless men they were, ill armed and unkempt and noisy. Their only strength was in their numbers, so far as I could see. As for ourselves, the gate was the weakest place, by reason of there being no ditch before it, and that the ground was level, or nearly so, for twenty paces outside. I did not think it in the least likely that our men could not hold off the two side attacks; for the stockade was well placed and high, and the ditch sheer-sided and deep. Take it all round, it was hard to see how Gymbert expected to take the place, or why he would try it at all. "Quendritha is driving him," said Kynan, laughing, when I said as much. "If that woman bids a man do a thing, he has to do it, or woe betide him. But it will be a fight, for a time." Now Gymbert halted his men beyond bow shot, and called to Jefan once more to give us up; and so finding no answer beyond a laugh from the men who were watching him from the rampart, drew his sword and bade his men fall on.