“That is so, Sandy,” Archie laughed; “but now that I am back I will for once exert my authority, and will see that she runs into no further danger.  And now, how goes the siege?”

“So far they have done but little damage, Sir Archie; but the machines which they brought up yesterday will, I fear, play havock with our walls.  They have not yet begun their work, for when they brought them up yesterday afternoon our men shot so hotly that they had to fall back again; but in the night they have thrown up high banks of earth, and have planted the engines under their shelter, and will, ere long, begin to send their messengers against our walls.  Thrice they assaulted the works beyond the drawbridge and twice we beat them back; but last night they came on with all their force.  I was myself there, and after fighting for a while and seeing they were too strong for us, I thought it best to withdraw before they gained footing in the work, and so had time to draw off the men and raise the drawbridge.”

“Quite right, Sandy!  The defenders of the post would only have been slaughtered, and the assailants might have rushed across the drawbridge before it could have been raised.  The post is of little importance save to defend the castle against a sudden surprise, and would only have been a source of constant anxiety and loss.  How many do you reckon them?  Judging by their tents there must be three or four thousand.”

“About three thousand, Sir Archie, I make it; and as we had no time to get the tenants in from my lady’s Ayrshire estate, we have but two hundred men in the castle, and many of these are scarce more than boys.”

“I have brought a hundred and fifty with me, Sandy, so we have as many as we can use on the walls, though I could wish I had another hundred or two for sorties.”

Half an hour later the great machines began to work, hurling vast stones with tremendous force against the castle wall.  Strongly as this was built, Archie saw that it would ere many days crumble before the blows.

“I did not reckon on such machines as these,” he said to Sandy.  “Doubtless they are some of the huge machines which King Edward had constructed for the siege of Stirling, and which have remained there since the castle was taken.  Fortunately we have still the moat when a breach is made, and it will be hard work to cross that.”

All day the great stones thundered against the wall.  The defenders were not idle, but kept up a shower of arrows at the edge of the mound behind which the machines were hidden; but although many of those working there were killed, fresh relays came constantly up, and the machines never ceased their work.  By nightfall the face of the wall was bruised and battered.  Many of the stones in front had fallen from their places.

“Another twenty-four hours,” Archie said to Marjory, as he joined her in the great hall, “and the breach will be begun, forty-eight and it will be completed.  They will go on all night, and we may expect no rest until the work is done.  In an hour’s time I shall sally out from the passage into the wood and beat up their camp.  Expecting no attack from the rear, we shall do them rare damage ere they can gather to oppose us.  As soon as they do so we shall be off again, and, scattering in various directions, gather again in the wood and return here.”