The horsemen, who had been standing in a line two
deep, wheeled suddenly, and made their flank into their front; and
as swift as a striking adder, the long, steel-clad column was
launched upon the ruinous barricade.
Of the first two horsemen, one fell, rider and steed, and was
ridden down by his companions. The second leaped clean upon the
summit of the rampart, transpiercing an archer with his lance.
Almost in the same instant he was dragged from the saddle and his
horse despatched.
And then the full weight and impetus of the charge burst upon and
scattered the defenders. The men-at-arms, surmounting their fallen
comrades, and carried onward by the fury of their onslaught, dashed
through Dick's broken line and poured thundering up the lane
beyond, as a stream bestrides and pours across a broken dam.
Yet was the fight not over. Still, in the narrow jaws of the
entrance, Dick and a few survivors plied their bills like woodmen;
and already, across the width of the passage, there had been formed
a second, a higher, and a more effectual rampart of fallen men and
disembowelled horses, lashing in the agonies of death.
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