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Its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by skilled fowlers, and he caused wicks which had been set on fire to be fastened beneath their wings. The birds sought the shelter of their own nests, and filled the city with a blaze; all the townsmen flocked to quench it, and left the gates defenceless.
There was nothing for it, so long as the States were determined to hold the spot, but to meet the besieger at every point, above or below the earth, and sell every inch of that little morsel of space at the highest price that brave men could impose.
The spirit of a Crusader, half-heaven, half-earth, fired the gentle breast of the besieger till Jerusalem was won. Then came the hour of disenchantment. The mysterious object of adoration, seen on his own hearth-rug, melted into the mass of men. The spiritual idealist was cross over an ill-cooked dinner, and as commonplace at breakfast as his Times.
But the descendants of those sea-kings, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, who had carried England's flag and England's renown into every sea, would not part with the brightest jewel in her crown, and for a price. Three times, too, the besieger has appeared before Gibraltar, and vainly.
As regards the former, the hour might have been spent less pleasantly than it was; for it so chanced that an interlude was introduced, of so interesting a character to all, but more especially to the naturalist Karl, that for a while the proximity of their savage besieger was forgotten, and they scarcely remembered that they were besieged.
The same courage which obtains the esteem of a civilized enemy provokes the fury of a savage, and the impatient besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and dignity, should be confounded in a general massacre.
Frost and snow and ice and the willing winds have been its sworn retainers. Cold and famine and death it flaunted in the face of the besieger. Man is of a day, and the elements are but slippery allies. A spade and a compass are his meagre weapons; yet man has conquered. The struggle was long, with many a reconnaissance and partial triumph, but at length the victory is complete.
He didn't like this Hubbard fellow, either. He rather thought it was his duty to go and send him about his business. Ted was a bit of a knight, at heart, and felt now the chivalric urge, combining with others less unselfish, to go to the rescue of the damsel and set her free of the false besieger.
The mounds of dead between besieged and besieger made the advance difficult. The sun had sunk low in the west, and Hannibal was exasperated by the stubborn resistance which mocked his efforts. Still trusting in his lucky star he ordered the trumpets sounded for the final assault; but at that instant an unheard of thing occurred which disconcerted the chieftain and sowed confusion among his troops.
If, then, a besieger constructed a ladder of enormous length, it might be placed at night on the narrow ledge of rock far below this platform, standing almost perpendicular, and by this means man after man would be enabled to reach the roof of the castle, and, under the guidance of Rego, gain admittance to the lower rooms unsuspected. "But the sentinel?" objected Von Richenbach.
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