spite of the missiles which the defenders, who still possessed the tower Y and its curtains, hurled upon them from behind. An egress had been left in the strong barricade which connected the angle of the chapel choir with the adjacent tower. Anseric and a party of his best men issued by this outlet and fell upon the flank of the attack, which fell back in disorder. Then other egresses well masked were opened on the front of the retrenchment, and the defenders resumed the offensive. They very nearly regained possession of these breaches and of the gateway; but the duke, on seeing his force in disorder, brought up his reserves, and the three bodies of assailants, four times more numerous than the defenders, obliged the latter to retire again behind their retrenchments. Then about seven o'clock in the evening--for the combat was prolonged without decisive success on either side, and the days are long at this period of the year--the two catapults discharged a quantity of darts furnished with burning tow on the roof of the stabling and of the chapel. The men of the castle exclusively occupied with the defence of the retrenchment, had no time to think of extinguishing the fire, more especially as the crossbowmen stationed on the defences of the bailey, now in the hands of the Burgundians, struck every defender showing himself on these buildings. The fire, therefore, soon gained the roofs. During the attack on the retrenchment, the duke resolved to get rid of the defenders remaining in his rear in the tower Y, and who annoyed the assailants. He called to them by a herald, that they could no longer hope for relief, that if they did not instantly surrender they should all be put to the sword. These brave men sent, as their only reply to the herald, a crossbow bolt, which wounded him. Then the duke, much irritated, ordered straw and faggots to be collected within the bailey and in the outside ditch, and all the wood they might have at hand, and set fire to, in order to smoke out the rebels. Very soon, in fact, the tower was licked by curls of flame, and communicated the fire to the hoarding and roof. Not one man cried "quarter!" for all seeing the fire gaining them, and blinded by the smoke, had retreated by a subterranean passage which from this tower communicated with the gateway of the castle--it was a Roman work preserved beneath the ancient curtain.[28] In withdrawing, they had stopped up the outlet of this passage, which, moreover, was soon filled up by the smoking _débris_ of the tower floors. The duke was persuaded that they had perished in the flames rather than surrender, and that set him gravely thinking. To the last glimmering of daylight succeeded, for the combatants, the illumination of these three fires.