He seemed very busy, and soon an enormous
Turkish catapult made its appearance on the platform and aided by the
elevation at which it was planted, flung a twentypound stone some two
hundred and forty yards in the air; it bounded after that, and knocked
some dirt into the Lord Anthony's eye, and made him swear. The next
stone struck a horse that was bringing up a sheaf of arrows in a cart,
bowled the horse over dead like a rabbit, and spilt the cart. It was
then turned at the besiegers' wooden tower, supposed to be out of shot.
Sir Turk slung stones cut with sharp edges on purpose, and struck it
repeatedly, and broke it in several places. The besiegers turned two
of their slinging engines on this monster, and kept constantly slinging
smaller stones on to the platform of the barbican, and killed two of
the engineers. But the Turk disdained to retort. He flung a forty-pound
stone on to the besiegers' great catapult, and hitting it in the
neighbourhood of the axis, knocked the whole structure to pieces, and
sent the engineers skipping and yelling.
In the afternoon, as Simon was running back to his mantelet from a
palisade where he had been shooting at the besieged, Denys, peeping
through his slit, saw the poor fellow suddenly stare and hold out his
arms, then roll on his face, and a feathered arrow protruded from his
back. The archer showed himself a moment to enjoy his skill.
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