"To the palisade! To the palisade! Courage! The English are beaten! I tell you so by order of God!"[77] Master John and his men hewed down the posts with their axes; a breach was effected; the flood of the assailants rushed through the gap like a torrent through a sluice; and a furious hand-to-hand encounter was joined between the French and the English. "Forward!" cried Joan keeping her sword in its scabbard and merely waving her banner; "heaven protects us! Forward!" "We shall see whether heaven protects you, accursed witch!" cried an English captain, whereat he dealt a furious blow with his sabre upon the head of the Maid. Her casque protected her. Immediately another blow from a heavy iron mace fell upon her right shoulder. Dazed by these repeated strokes, she staggered for a moment; Master John supported her while two of his cannoniers threw themselves before her to protect her with their bodies. The shock was quickly overcome. Joan recovered herself, stood daring and erect, and rushed into action with redoubled spirit. The enthusiasm of the warrior maiden was irresistible; the boulevard was soon heaped with the dead of both sides. Driven back, the English again succumbed to the superstitious terror that the Maid inspired them with and they sought safety behind the numerous frame buildings that served as barracks to the garrison of the bastille and as lodgings for the officers. The struggle continued with unabated fury, without mercy or pity, through the causeways that separated the vast frame structures. Each lodging of the captains, each barrack, became a redoubt that had to be carried. Fired by the presence of the Maid, the French attacked and carried them one after the other. The English who survived the fury of the first assault defended the ground inch by inch and succeeded in retreating in good order into the church that crowned the boulevard--a church with thick walls, surmounted by a belfry. Entrenched in this last fort, whose doors they barricaded from within, the English archers riddled their assailants with arrows, shot through the narrow windows, while other English soldiers, posted on the platform of the belfry, rolled down heavy stones, placed there in advance, upon the heads of the French. Gathered in a mass near the portico of the church, and entirely exposed, the French were being crushed and decimated by the invisible enemy, not an arrow or stone of whom was lost. The Maid noticed that her men began to waver. Banner in hand she rushed forward: "Victory to Gaul! Break in the door! Let us boldly enter the church. It is ours by the order of God!"