Hector now ordered trumpets to sound; he was soon joined by the other troops, and at a leisurely pace they rode back to their starting point.

Not more than half the guns had as yet been taken up, for MacIntosh had found it necessary to put double teams to them in order to drag them up the steep road.

The mounted men had all brought ropes with them, and, dismounting, eight yoked their horses to each gun, and in an hour the whole were brought up to the plateau, the drawbridge was lowered, the sacks of earth cleared away, and the portcullis raised, the gates thrown open, and the garrison filed into the courtyard, greeted by cries of welcome from the women.
"I think that we have crushed the insurrection in this part of Poitou," Hector said to Madame de Blenfoix.

"We have certainly killed six or seven hundred of them, and I am sure that the remainder will never rally.

We will rest today, and tomorrow morning we will set to work to complete the defences of the chateau, so that it may be held by a comparatively small number of men." The joy of the women was extreme when they found that not a single man had fallen, though a few had received gashes more or less severe.