And a busy night it was; for lo! in the morning, when Raoul the Norman knight awoke from the deep sleep which had followed his heavy overnight’s carouse, and looked forth from his chamber in the tower over the gateway of the manor-house, he saw what seemed another and a taller tower on the opposite side of the moat; and what seemed a bridge of boats laid across the moat; and in the tower were archers with their bows bent, and men-at-arms with swords and battle-axes. Raoul rubbed his eyes, and still seeing the same sight, thought it all magic or a dream. But there was more magic than this, for when he called up his sleepy household, and his careless and over-confident men-at-arms, and went round the house, he saw another bridge of boats leading to the postern-gate at the back of the house, and beyond that bridge he saw a catapult with a score of armed men standing by it. But look where he would, there were armed men; the manor-house was surrounded, and surrounded in such fashion that there could be no egress from it, and small hope of defending it. The despairing Norman knight, therefore, went back to his tower over the gateway, and called a parley. “What would ye, O Saxons?” said Raoul; “know ye not that ye are breaking the king’s peace? Who is your leader, and what wants he?” “I am their leader and lord,” quoth Hereward, speaking from that marvellous wooden tower which Girolamo had caused to be raised; “I am their leader and the Lord of Brunn, and all that I want is to get possession of my house and lands. So come forth, Norman, and fear not! Thou and thy men shall have quarter and kindly treatment. But if ye seek to resist, or let fly so much as one arrow upon these my good people, by all the saints of old England I will hang ye all on one gibbet.” “What shall we do in this strait?” said Raoul to his seneschal. “Take terms and surrender,” quoth the seneschal; “for the house cannot be defended against the host that is come against it, and against the engines of war that are raised against it. Three butts of that catapult would shiver the postern gate; that tower in front commands the battlements; the bridges of boats will give access to every part of the walls. This could not be done in one short night, except by magic; but magic is not to be withstood by sinful men-at-arms, and our chaplain is gone to feast with the monks of Crowland. Moreover, oh Raoul, we have consumed nearly all our provisions in our own feastings, and so should starve in a day or two if we could hold out so long—but that is impossible.” “But,” said Raoul, “be there not some twenty or thirty Norman lances no farther off than in the town of Stamford?”[128] “But they cannot cross the wide watery fens; and if they were here they could not charge among these accursed bogs.” “’Tis all too true,” quoth Raoul, “and therefore must we surrender.”