Immediately Harry wheeled round and dashed back to the support of his men, now engaged in a desperate and unequal battle. Their backs to the coach, they were facing dauntlessly thrice their number of infuriated brigands, who had discarded their firearms and came to the attack with swords flashing in ever-narrowing circles. One of the dragoons had already fallen; but his comrades were all tough soldiers tried on many a battle-field, recking nothing of the odds, every man with full confidence in himself and his fellows. They were ranged in a quarter circle against the coach, with just enough space between them to allow free play with their weapons. Twice already had they beaten back the enemy; a third and more determined onslaught had somewhat broken their formation, and two men had been wounded and forced back, exposing the flank of the others. Harry sprang through the coach just in time to close the gap. He hurled himself into the fray with a shout; the enemy, taking him for the advance-guard of reinforcements, fell back for a moment; and before they could recover and return to the charge there was a thunderous clatter on the bridge, the eleven troopers flung themselves from their steeds, and scrambling man by man through the coach gave threefold strength to the hard-pressed line. "Charge!" shouted Harry in his clear, ringing voice. The men surged forward with a roar of exultation, scattering the brigands to the limits of the courtyard. Two or three bolted like rabbits into the keep; the rest cried for quarter and flung down their arms; the din of battle suddenly ceased, and some seventeen panic-stricken prisoners were the prize of the victors. "Max, go into the keep, up the stairs to the top, and tell me what you see." From the parapet of the keep Max shouted that he saw a large troop of horse not a mile away, galloping amain towards the castle. "Men, with me!" cried Harry. Twelve dragoons sprang through the coach after him, and with haste helped him to draw the planks of the bridge within the archway. They had completed their task save for the last plank when the foremost files of the enemy galloped up, checking their horses at the very brink when they saw the unbridged gap before them; no horse could cross on a two-foot plank. Harry withdrew his men just in time to escape the bullets fired at them by the baulked and enraged brigands. At the last moment he himself stooped, lifted the end of the plank, and hurled it into the fosse. A slug whizzed past his head; he dashed back under the archway, through the coach, breathless but safe. As he stepped through the coach into the courtyard he heard a groan. His wounded men had been carried into the keep; at the moment no trooper was near. Bending down, he looked beneath the coach, and saw the landlord lying flat on his face, his head buried in his arms, groaning dismally. "Are you hit, landlord?" asked Harry. "Lord have mercy on my soul!" groaned the man.