"Back a dozen yards and then press to the attack again," cried Edgar, and the tree, moving with comparative ease upon the big wheels, swung back and was urged forward once more. Again the ram struck the drawbridge, widening the cracks and bending its timbers back towards the great gates behind. Six times the ram was swung before the last remnants of the bridge gave way before its onslaught, leaving naught but a pile of splintered boards and a few pieces of woodwork dangling from the chains on either side of the gateway. The attack had not been without its penalties. Eight men had fallen crushed and bruised beneath the stones flung with such furious energy by the defenders. Their places had been instantly taken by fresh men, for the blood of the peasants was now up, and none recked of the danger so long as the attack went on unchecked. "Now for the gates, men!" cried Edgar cheerily, as they prepared to swing forward for the seventh time. The fusillade from the walls had now slackened, for the imminence of an attack upon the gates had compelled the defenders to withdraw half the men from the ramparts and to station them in the courtyard ready for the moment when the gates had been battered down. No one, not even the defenders, believed that the gates were capable of withstanding the onslaughts of the deadly weapon devised by the attackers. Missing the grim figure of De Brin from the walls, Edgar hoped, with no little satisfaction, that they would soon meet hand to hand beneath the gateway. So far all had gone as he had anticipated. Every surprise had been sprung by the attackers, but, to his sorrow, he had yet to find that the defenders had one or two things left to them that he had not taken full account of. So uniform had been his success thus far that it seemed that but one more effort need be made, and the castle would be won. Four times, with four tremendous crashes, the ram was swung against the iron-plated gates, and still they held. The fifth time they gave, and fell inwards so suddenly and completely that the ram rolled forward almost unchecked until the wheels sank to the axles in the mud and brushwood of the filled-in moat.