Early in the day Fulviac detached a body of two thousand men under Colgran, a noted free-lance, to march upstream, cross by the upper ford, and threaten Flavian on the flank. The fighting began at ten of the clock, when Fulviac’s bowmen scattered along the river and opened fire upon the stockades. Flavian’s archers and arbalisters responded. A body of five thousand rebels advanced with great mantlets upon wheels to the northern bank and entrenched themselves there. A second body, with waggons laden with timber and several flat-bottomed boats, poured down to the river a mile higher up, and began to throw a rough, raft-like bridge across the stream. At half-past ten masses of men-at-arms splashed through the water at the ford, under cover of a hot fire from the archers lining the bank, and began an assault upon the redoubt and the stockades. By twelve o’clock the bridge higher up the stream had been completed, and a glittering line of pikes poured across, to be met on the southern bank by Geoffrey Longsword and a body of men-at-arms. It was hand to hand, and hot and strenuous as could be. Men grappled, stabbed, hacked, bellowed like a herd of bulls. Flavian had reinforced the defenders of the ford, who still held Fulviac at bay, despite a heavy archery fire and the almost continuous assaults poured against the stockades. Yet by one o’clock Fulviac’s levies had forced the passage of the bridge and gained footing on the southern bank. Longsword’s men, outnumbered and repulsed, were falling back before the black masses of foot that now poured into the meadows. The situation was critical enough, as Flavian had long seen, as he galloped hotly from point to point. Fulviac’s rebels had shown more valour than he had ever prophesied. Flavian packed all his remaining foot into the trenches, and putting himself at the head of his knights and mounted men-at-arms, rode down to charge the troops who had crossed by the pontoons. Here chivalry availed him to the full. By a succession of tremendous rushes, he drove the rebels back into the river, did much merciless slaughter, cut the ropes that held the bridge to the southern bank, so that the whole structure veered downstream. The peril seemed past, when he was startled by the cry that the redoubt had been carried, and that Fulviac held the ford. Looking south, he saw the truth with his own eyes. His troops were falling back in disorder upon Gambrevault, followed by an ever-growing mass, that swarmed exultantly into the meadows. The last and successful assault had been led by Fulviac in person. Flavian had to grip the truth. The rebels outnumbered him by more than five to one; and he had underrated their discipline and fighting spirit. He was wiser before the sun went down. "Come, gentlemen, we shall beat them yet." "Shall we charge them, sire?" "Blow bugles, follow me, sirs; I am in no mood for defeat."