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.

Baffled by this fresh obstacle, the remainder of the cavalry fell back;

and as, at the sight of this movement, the flight of arrows redoubled

from the casements of the houses, their retreat had, for a moment, almost

degenerated into flight.

Almost at the same time, those who had crossed the barricade and charged

farther up the street, being met before the door of the Chequers by the

formidable hunchback and the whole reserve of the Yorkists, began to come

scattering backward, in the excess of disarray and terror.

Dick and his fellows faced about, fresh men poured out of the houses; a

cruel blast of arrows met the fugitives full in the face, while

The Black Arrow