The following night Baron Guy determined to make a last effort to set the _cat_ on fire. The working of the miners could be heard. Beneath the gate B[25] of the bailey, there was a drain which discharged the rain-water of the court into the ditch. This mouth had been in great part walled up when the enemy presented themselves before the place. The floor of the bridge, in falling, had moreover hidden it from the besiegers. The baron had the walling removed noiselessly with crowbars, and when the opening was large enough to allow a man to pass, he chose three determined fellows who, with Brother Jerome, slid down into the ditch. Crawling up the mound which supported the _cat_, they slipped beneath its gallery two small barrels of Greek fire. Lighting the match with the aid of a preparation which the brother brought in a box, they went back as they had come, and the mouth of the drain was again walled up. From the summit of the neighbouring towers the besieged had then the pleasure of seeing the barrels spread streams of white flames, which, clinging to the timbers of the gallery, set it on fire. The more water the besiegers threw on the flames the more intense they became, so they began to try turf and mould. The defenders then recommenced throwing beams and stones on the roof of the _cat_; then more barrels of Greek fire, bundles of straw, and faggots. In spite of the efforts of the Burgundians, the gallery being quite filled with suffocating smoke, was no longer tenable. They were forced to abandon it; and it was with great difficulty that they were able to preserve from the fire about eighteen feet by cutting it away with axes. The besieged on their side had not been able to prevent part of the remains of the hoardings above the _cat_ from catching fire; but these hoardings were already past service, and their efforts were confined to preventing the fire from extending right and left. The entire head of the _cat_ against the wall and twenty feet of its length was burned. The operations of the miners were not much advanced, still they had already removed enough material to give shelter to two men from the projectiles falling from the ramparts. Under favour of night, therefore, some pioneers returned to the mine-hole by creeping under the _débris_ of the _cat_. The darkness was great and the defenders did not observe them. But Brother Jerome was on the watch for suspicious sounds, and soon came to inform the baron that they were mining again. "Well," said the latter, "let us repeat yesterday's manoeuvre; send men out through the mouth of the drain which these Burgundians are so stupid as not to have looked for; and let some good thrusts of the knife relieve us of these burrowers; but let there be no noise!" The mouth of the drain was once more unwalled, and Brother Jerome with his three companions in the previous exploit, armed with long knives and gliding along the wall, reached the hole of the mine.