Sentence:  Five or six years after Mèlusine had departed, there began to appear, on the last day of August, a great hand that removed the <WSD>pommel</WSD> from the Poitevin Tower and pulled at it so strongly that it broke a great part of the roof. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A knob forming the finial of a turret or pavilion.