The great leader’s stirring words put new life into all who heard; and forward pressed the toil-worn host as if it had just started.
On the morrow, their eagerness for action was increased tenfold by the news that Don Tello, Henry of Transtamare’s brother, had fallen with a large force on an isolated English detachment, and cut off Sir William Felton, several other knights, and more than two hundred men. But, though burning to avenge this disaster, the English saw no way of doing so; for they found the Spanish army so strongly posted at the little town of Navaretta, that even the Black Prince durst not attack, in such a position, a force thrice his own; and all that day the opposing hosts faced each other in sullen inaction.
That evening was the most anxious that the great English leader had ever spent. Fight he must on the morrow, for not a morsel of food was left; and he would have to attack, with barely thirty thousand men, more than one hundred thousand. At Crecy and Poitiers his strong position had won the day against superior numbers, but now all the advantages of numbers and position were with the enemy.
The sun was sinking when his watchful eye saw a small group of horsemen advance a little before the glittering wall of spears and helmets in the Spanish host. They seemed officers of high rank, if not the actual commanders—and, in fact, the tall, handsome man in the centre, with a crown on his helmet, was Henry of Transtamare himself; and the short, square man in black armour, who was speaking to him so earnestly, was Bertrand du Guesclin!
The Breton hero’s advice, if taken, would have sealed the doom of the English, and ended the war ere it had well begun. Warning Henry that his raw levies, though brave, were no match in open field for Edward’s veterans, he pointed out that the unprovided English must either starve or fight at a disadvantage, and that all he had to do was to keep any supplies from reaching the enemy, and let famine and disease do the work for him.
But here, as at Auray, the great general’s wise counsel was overborne by the folly of his hot-headed colleagues. The fiery Henry would hear of nothing but instant battle, and his brother Don Tello, flushed with his slight success, vehemently supported him, saying with a sneer—