"So much the better, by Mercury! Come here, quickly, some of you! Get on top of the portcullis! Bear down! bear down! Don't you see that those dead bodies will enable the living to crawl under the iron teeth, and that, when they are once under the archway, they will set fire to our gates! Down, down, you fellows! Break the heads of anyone who tries to pass, with hammers or feet or musket-butts. Mow them down with your scythe, living and dead, good Andoche! And you, Châtaignier, have you another charge? Have at that red-nose protruding there! So! bravo! by the god Teutates, that is well! right in the mouth! That makes one less of them!" Mingling thus eloquent appeals with colloquial phrases whereby he deigned to descend to the level of the common herd, Adamas had the satisfaction of seeing the portcullis flatten the bodies beneath it, and the assailants fall back to the end of the bridge. "Now to the falconets!" he cried. "Move quicker than that, my Cupids! Come, come, ten thousand devils! Aim! aim! Make me a fricassee of these birds of darkness!" The miniature artillery of the château disheartened the bandits, who had nothing with which to reply to it; so they carried away their wounded and decided, in default of anything better, to go and sack the abandoned farmhouse and banquet there. They tossed live calves and sheep into the embers of the burned mill, whence there soon arose an acrid odor of burning wool. They pushed back with pitchforks the unfortunate creatures which sought to escape from that torture. They devoured them half raw, half charred. The casks in the farm-house cellar were burst in. One and all became more or less intoxicated, even the children and the wounded. They threw the body of the ill-fated farmer into the fire, and they would have dealt out the same treatment to the two servants who were prisoners in their hands, except for the hope of ransom; and even so they spared them against the wishes of Sancho, who was unwilling to give quarter to anyone. The old Spaniard did not think of eating or drinking or stealing. It was against his will that the Brilbault band had gone before the more useful auxiliaries whose arrival he awaited with impatience in order to consummate his vengeance. He was anxious, not lest he should lose his own life, for he had made up his mind beforehand to sacrifice that, but lest his undertaking should fail by reason of the haste and greed of the wretched creatures whom he had enlisted in it. Being unable to hold them back until the hour at which it was arranged that his real allies should open the march and lead the expedition, he had accompanied them in order that no other than himself should have the privilege of torturing the _beaux messieurs de Bois-Doré_, if they should have the ill-luck to fall into the hands of those marauders.