They stood some twenty feet back from the edge of the fosse, and extended from the wall to the verge of the precipice.

The carts and horses had, before the walls were built, been taken round to the back of the castle, where the plateau extended some fifty yards beyond the defences.

Evening was just coming on when the boys came in, two of them bringing a report that a great crowd of men could be seen approaching from the west.
MacIntosh, with thirty men, were at once lowered down from the battlements, and took up their places in an intrenchment which had been during the day thrown up at the point where the road came up to the plateau, while a score of the tenants assembled at the edge of the cliff, where great piles of blocks of stone had been collected in readiness to throw down.

Lighted torches were placed at intervals along the road, and three or four great cressets, holding balls of tow soaked in turpentine and oil, were set up on the edge of the plateau; these were to be lighted when the peasants attempted to mount the hill.
An hour passed, and then a flame sprang up from a house and outbuildings in the valley, lighting up the ground around and showing that a great crowd was gathered on the road there.
"How many should you say there were, MacIntosh ?" "I should put them at four or five thousand." "Yes, they are certainly not short of four thousand.

What wild looking figures! They are just the same in appearance as those who attacked Madame de Blenfoix's chateau.