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exclaimed, raising his stentorian voice till the

arches around rung again, "to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones with this truncheon!"

The men sulkily replied, "that they desired nothing better than to go to the battlements, providing Front-de-Bœuf would bear them out with their master, who had commanded them to tend the dying man."

"The dying man, knaves!" rejoined the Baron; "I promise thee we shall all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly. But I will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of yours.—Here, Urfried—hag—fiend of a Saxon witch—hearest me not?—tend me this bed-ridden fellow, since he must needs be tended, whilst these knaves use their weapons.—Here be two arblasts, comrade, with windlaces and quarrells^[1]—to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt through a Saxon brain."

↑ The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or diamond shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it.

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[1] The arblast was a cross-bow, the windlace the machine used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or diamond shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it.

[1]