His preparations completed, Buonterzo launched the attack, sending a body of three hundred foot to lead it, each man bearing above his head one of the cumbrous improvised shields, and trailing after him his pike, attached now to his belt. From the summit of the bluff Bellarion looked down upon what appeared to be a solid roof of timber thrusting forward across the stream. A troop of horse was preparing to follow as soon as the pikemen should have cleared the way. Bellarion drew two thirds of his men farther off along the river. Thus, whilst lengthening the range, rendering aim less certain and less effective, at least it enabled the arbalesters to shoot at the vulnerable flank of the advancing host. The attack was fully two thirds of the way across the ford, which may have been some two hundred yards in width, before Bellarion's men were in their new positions. He ordered a volley of twenty bolts, so as to judge the range; and although only half of these took effect, yet the demoralisation created, in men who had been conceiving themselves invulnerably sheltered, was enough to arrest them. A second volley followed along the low line of exposed flank, and, being more effective than the first, flung the column into complete disorder. Dead men lay awash where they had fallen; wounded men were plunging in the water, shouting to their comrades for help, what time their comrades cursed and raved, rousing the echoes of that normally peaceful valley, as they had been roused before when the horsemen found themselves in similar plight. Odd shutters and doors went floating down the stream, and the continuity of the improvised roof having been broken, those immediately behind the fallen found themselves exposed now in front as well as on the flank. A mounted officer spurred through the water, shouting a command repeatedly as he came, and menacing the disordered ranks with his sword. At last his order was understood, and the timber shields were swung from overhead to cover the flank that was being assailed. That, thought Buonterzo, should checkmate the defenders of the ford, who with such foresight had shifted their position. But scarcely was the manœuvre executed when into them came a volley from the thirty men Bellarion had left at the head of the bluff in anticipation of just such a counter-movement. Because the range here was short, not a bolt of that volley failed to take effect, and by the impression it created of the ubiquity of this invisible opponent it completed the discomfiture of the assailants. They turned, flung away their shields, and went scrambling back out of range as fast as they could breast the water. To speed them came another volley at their flanks, which claimed some victims, whilst several men in their panic got into deep water and two or three were drowned.