The twenty-four came on, halted at the brink of the gully, and prepared to raise their palisades. Then Harry gave the word. The troopers below had been instructed to fire at the left-hand sections, those above at the right-hand sections. At the word they sprang up, thrust their muzzles through the embrasures and loopholes, and, undeterred by the patter of the enemy’s bullets around them, took deliberate aim. The effect was all that Harry had hoped. The range was short; the men were old campaigners of iron nerve, and almost every shot told. Two or three men in each section of the bridge-bearers fell; the rest, dismayed by the fate of their comrades, loosened their hold on the palisades, which dropped back on to the farther side of the fosse. There was a rush among the bolder spirits to supply their places, and Aglionby himself, his red face purple with fury and excitement, threw himself at the head of his men, who strove with desperate haste to raise the palisades once more. But there was no cessation of the fire from the walls. Harry had taken the precaution of collecting from the stock of arms four muskets for each man, so that they needed to waste no time in reloading. No sooner had the palisades begun to rise again than a second fusillade burst forth from the castle; again the unwieldy poles fell clattering to the ground; again the men who had survived rushed back out of range. Aglionby and one or two others at first refused to budge, and took shelter behind the timber; but when they found themselves deserted they at length scoured away after the rest, and the whole force drew off. "Fire no more," cried Harry. "Let them look to their wounded." Finding that the firing from the castle had ceased, a party of the enemy ventured to the edge of the fosse and removed the hapless men there, some stark dead, others wounded more or less severely. Half a dozen men remained on watch at points surrounding the castle; the rest withdrew to the copse; and the members of the garrison, not one of whom was hurt, rejoiced in the repulse of this first assault, and went in relays to eat the meal which Otto the landlord had prepared for them. No further movement of the enemy was observable. Max suggested that they had encamped in a large open glade within the wood. As night drew on, a slight glow above the tree-tops and thin columns of smoke proclaimed that camp fires had been lighted. Evidently, then, the enemy had not relinquished their hope of recapturing the castle. They were, of course, aware that its present garrison could not escape, for the plank bridge could not be collected and replaced unobserved; without it the inmates could only leave on foot, and they would thus easily be overtaken by the horsemen. Harry sat down with Fanshawe and Buckley to eat his supper and discuss the situation. He was most apprehensive of a night-attack.