Possibly, however, the lay leaders may have been unwilling to stake the safety of their enterprise solely on the judgement of their episcopal counsellor; for it seems that while Falkes de Bréauté, with his own followers and all the cross-bowmen, was sent into the castle, the main body of the host went round to the north gate--the Roman “Porta Nova,” “New Port,” now reduced to a single great arch with a smaller one at its side, but in the Marshal’s day probably still almost complete in the pristine strength of its solid Roman masonry, forming an arched passage flanked by two smaller passages, some twenty feet long,[186] and closed with heavy doors which the Royalists set to work to batter in.[187] The French party were plying their engines vigorously on the castle when suddenly they saw its walls and towers bristling with cross-bowmen; and “as in the twinkling of an eye” a shower of quarrels, aimed with deadly effect at the destriers of the besiegers, reduced many knights and barons of high rank among them to the condition of foot soldiers. The sight of their discomfiture tempted Falkes to make a dash from the eastern gate of the castle into their midst, with some of his personal followers; he was, however, quickly surrounded and captured, but was gallantly rescued by his men.[188] Bishop Peter meanwhile was protesting to the Marshal against the folly--as he deemed it--of trying to force an entrance elsewhere than at the “safe” place where, as he said, there was an opening in the wall ready for use, yet hidden from and unguarded by the enemy. “By my head! those men are wrong; they have not found the right way to get in. I will lead you to it; come with me.” “By God’s sword! hither, my helmet!” was the Marshal’s reply.[189] Peter however now held him back and proposed that before risking a general assault two men from each “battle” or division of the host should be sent to look around for ambushes.[190] This was done; but the Marshal was too impatient to await the result. He at once “put himself forward on his way,” calling his own men to the onset: “Forward! Now shall ye see your enemies vanquished in a few hours; shame to him who longer delays!” Again Peter tried to check him, begging him to wait till the whole host could be reunited and the attack made in full force. The aged warrior would not listen; “swifter than a merlin he struck spurs into his horse, so that all who were with him gathered hardihood as they beheld him.” A “valet” called after him that he was, after all, going without his helmet; “Stop here while I fetch it,” said the Marshal to his son. In a moment he was back again, “and when he had thus covered his head, he was goodly to look upon beyond all the rest--light in movement as a bird, hawk or eaglet.” “Hungry lion never rushed on its prey so hotly as the Marshal on his foes”; at the first onset he dashed three spears’ length into their midst, cutting his way through them and scattering them on all sides,