There being but faint light, the two lost their way, and soon found themselves nearly, at the gate of the town.

Here, while groping about in the dark; and trying to effect their retreat, they were saluted with a shot, which struck Sir William in the stomach.

For an instant; thinking himself mortally injured, he expressed his satisfaction that he had been, between the commander-in-chief and the blow, and made other "comfortable and resolute speeches." Very fortunately, however, it proved that the marshal was not seriously hurt, and, after a few days, he was about his work as usual, although obliged--as the Earl of Leicester expressed it--"to carry a bullet in his belly as long as he should live." Roger Williams, too, that valiant adventurer--"but no, more valiant than wise, and worth his weight in gold," according to the appreciative Leicester--was shot through the arm.

For the dare-devil Welshman, much to the Earl's regret, persisted in running up and down the trenches "with a great plume of feathers in his gilt morion," and in otherwise making a very conspicuous mark of himself "within pointblank of a caliver." Notwithstanding these mishaps, however, the siege went successfully forward.

Upon the 2nd September the Earl began to batter, and after a brisk cannonade, from dawn till two in the afternoon, he had considerably damaged the wall in two places.