"Forward!" shouted Sir Thomas. "The middle gateway! There be good knights there, all tangled in the press. They can neither fight nor flee. Brave ransom to be won! Press on!" Even he and his own knights could make little better speed than might the bowmen on foot, but the French men-at-arms were already jammed one against another in the narrow passage by which they had hoped to retreat into the city. There could be no closing of the gate, but over it was a small fortalice, with a broad stairway leading up to it. Down sprang the good knights, for here seemed a refuge, as if it were a place wherein they might defend themselves. Much rather was it a trap in which they were to be taken helplessly. In vain they manned the battlements, for up the stairway after them poured Richard Neville's bowmen and axemen, with Sir Thomas Holland, Sir Peter Legh, and a dozen other knights. "Down with them, Richard of Wartmont!" shouted Guy the Bow, and the shafts began to fly. But in front of the Frenchmen in that tower stepped forth a knight in gorgeous armor, who shouted boldly: "Sir Thomas Holland, dost thou not know thine old-time comrade against the Prussian heathen and the Saracens of Grenada? I am the Count of Eu and Guignes, Constable of France, and with me is the Count of Tancarville. These all be knights of note. But we are betrayed to thine hand by these cowardly townspeople." So they surrendered all, while through the gateway below dashed Sir Geoffrey of Harcourt, his men-at-arms, and a great tide of spearmen and bowmen. At no great distance behind them rode the king and the prince, and it was but little before the Earl of Northampton raised the royal standard over that very gateway fort in token that Caen had fallen. The walls were won, indeed, but not the whole town or the castle. On to the center and to the townhall pressed Harcourt, and with him now was Richard. Every house was a small fort, however, and all doors were closed and barred. Not for their goods only, but for their very lives, did the inhabitants of Caen believe themselves to be contending. In the upper stories and garrets of the buildings had they prepared munitions of heavy stones, beams, and the like, and these did they now rain down upon the ranks of the English soldiery. Many were slain or wounded thereby. Brave knights were stricken from their horses to lie helpless upon the pavement. All these things were witnessed by the king himself when he and the prince and those who were with them rode through the gate of the city. An angry man was he to be stoned and to narrowly escape destruction in a street of a place which he had already taken.