The Saxons manufactured many broad ladders, and in the middle of the night, lowering these over the walls, they descended noiselessly, and three strong bodies fell upon the Danes guarding the engines. These fought stoutly, but were driven back, the engines were destroyed, and the Saxons retired to their walls again and drew up their ladders before the main body of Danes could arrive from the camp. This caused a delay of some days in the siege, but fresh engines having been constructed, the assault on the walls was recommenced, this time the whole Danish army moving out and sleeping at night close to them. After three days' battering, breaches of from thirty to fifty feet wide were effected in the walls. The Saxons had not been idle. Behind each of the threatened points they raised banks of earth ten feet high, and cut away the bank perpendicularly behind the shattered wall, so that the assailants as they poured in at the gaps would have to leap ten feet down. Each night the masses of wall which fell inside were cleared away, and when the breach was complete, and it was evident that the assault would take place the next morning, the hides which had been prepared were laid with the hairy side down, on the ground below. Through them they drove firmly into the ground numbers of pikes with the heads sticking up one or two feet, and pointed stakes hardened in the fire. Then satisfied that all had been done the Saxons lay down to rest. In the morning the Danes advanced to the assault. This time they were but little annoyed in their advance by the archers. These were posted on the walls at each side of the gaps to shoot down at the backs of the Danes after they had entered. On the inner semicircular mounds the Saxon force gathered four deep. With loud shouts the Danes rushed forward, climbed the outer mounds, and reached the breaches. Here the leaders paused on seeing the gulf below them, but pressed by those behind they could not hesitate long, but leapt down from the breach on to the slippery hides below. Not one who did so lived. It was impossible to keep their feet as they alighted, and as they fell they were impaled by the pikes and stakes. Pressed by those behind, however, fresh men leapt down, falling in their turn, until at length the hides and stakes were covered, and those leaping down found a foothold on the bodies of the fallen. Then they crowded on and strove to climb the inner bank and attack the Saxons. Now the archers on the walls opened fire upon them, and, pierced through and through with the arrows which struck them on the back, the Danes fell in great numbers. Edmund commanded at one of the breaches, Egbert at another, and Oswald, an old and experienced warrior, at the third.