The duke was one of the first to see the thick smoke issuing from the kindled wood. Immediately he gave orders for the extinction in all haste of the fire with the aid of small hand-ladders; but as soon as anyone mounted one of these ladders, a dozen archers and crossbowmen posted in the gate tower made him their mark. Four or five men had been killed or wounded before the level of the flame was reached. Inside, the soldiers who, like a rising flood, were ascending to the top of the tower, soon found themselves surrounded by the suffocating smoke produced by the Greek fire. Some were the more eager to mount, others hesitated and were for going down. "Now! to the rescue! Arde le beffroi!" cried Friar Jerome, coming to rejoin the baron's troop, which was almost driven into a corner close to the tower; and with his long mace he took the lead, breaking heads and arms. "Arde le beffroi!" he shouted at every blow. "Roche-Pont! Roche-Pont! Arde le beffroi!" shouted, in its turn, the baron's small troop (Fig. 47). Anseric's men, who were crowded up in the corner tower, re-echoed this cry. [Illustration: FIG. 47.--THE MOVABLE TOWER.] The Burgundians, however, did not retreat; in fact, if they had wished to do so, they could not. They tried to place ladders to get down into the court, but they were too short. "Burgundy! Burgundy!" shouted the assailants, in their turn. "Place prise! Place prise!" The grey light of dawn faintly illumined this scene of carnage, and its pale, cold gleams mingled with the ruddy glow of the fire. The smoke, driven by a breeze from the north-east, beat down upon the combatants, and sometimes hindered them from seeing each other; but the struggle raged on. Heaps of the dead and wounded--the latter being speedily dispatched by menials posted in the court to resist any who should try to get down into it--lay at the interior base of the curtains. Although Anseric and the baron had ordered those who remained in the two neighbouring towers (that of the angle and that of the gate) not to quit their post under any pretext, and not to unbar the gates till the two troops were absolutely driven back upon those defences, these brave men, seeing so fine an opportunity of routing the Burgundians, and observing the weakness of the two bands of the defenders compared with the host of assailants, opened the gates and sallied forth to help their comrades.