But those two men were hundred-armed giants; the swords flew about in their hands like the burning _glaive_ of the archangel.

They pierce with its point, strike with the flat, cut with the edge; every stroke brings down a man.

"For the king!" cried D'Artagnan, to every man he struck at, that is to say, to every man that fell.

This cry became the charging word for the musketeers, who, guided by it, joined D'Artagnan.

During this time the archers, recovering from the panic they had undergone, charge the aggressors in the rear, and regular as mill strokes, overturn or knock down all that opposed them.