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like ants upon the forecastle! They stoop and heave like handy shipmen. I doubt but we have taken in hand more than we can do. Each of these ships is a galeasse, and of the largest and swiftest make."

"I would I had your eyes," said Sir Nigel, blinking at the pirate galleys. "They seem very gallant ships, and I trust that we shall have much pleasance from our meeting with them. It would be well to pass the word that we should neither give nor take quarter this day."

The yellow cog had now shot out from the narrow waters of the Solent and was plunging and rolling on the long heave of the open channel. The wind blew freshly from the east, with a very keen edge to it; and the great sail swelled roundly out, laying the vessel over until the water hissed beneath her lee bulwarks. Broad and ungainly, she floundered from wave to wave, dipping her round bows deeply into the blue rollers, and sending the white flakes of foam in a spatter over her decks. On her larboard quarter lay the two dark galleys, which had already hoisted sail, and were shooting out from Freshwater Bay in swift pursuit, their double line of oars giving them a vantage which could not fail to bring them up with any vessel which trusted to sails alone. High and bluff the English cog; long, black and swift the pirate galleys, like two fierce lean wolves which had seen a lordly and unsuspecting stag walk past their forest lair.

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'Shall we turn, my fair lord, or shall we carry on?" asked the master ship-man, looking behind him with anxious eyes.

"Nay, we must carry on, and play the part of the helpless merchant."

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'But your pennons? They will see that we have two knights with us."

"Yet it would not be a knight's honour or good name to lower his pennon. Let them be, and they will think that we are a wine ship for Gascony, or that we bear the wool-bales of some mercer of the Staple. My word, but they are very swift! They swoop upon us like two goshawks on a heron. Is there not some symbol or device upon their sails?"

"That on the right," said Edricson, "appears to have the head of an Ethiop upon it."

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"'Tis the badge of Tête-noire, the Norman," cried a seaman-mariner. "I have seen it before, when he harried us at Winchelsea. He is a wondrous large and strong man, with no ruth for man, woman, or beast. They say that he hath the strength of six; and, certes, he hath the crimes of six upon his soul. See, now, to the poor souls who swing at either end of his yardarm!"

At each end of the yard there did indeed hang the dark figure of a man, jolting and lurching with hideous jerkings of its limbs at every plunge and swoop of the galley.

"By St. Paul!" said Sir Nigel, "and by the help of St. George and our Lady, it will be a very strange thing if our black-headed friend does not himself swing thence ere he be many hours older. But what is that upon the other galley?"

"It is the red cross of Genoa. a very noted captain, and it is his no seamen and no archers in the pare with those who serve him.”

This Spade-beard is boast that there are world who can com

"That we shall prove," said Goodwin Hawtayne;

"but it would be well, ere they close upon us, to raise up the mantlets and pavises as a screen against their bolts."

He shouted a hoarse order, and his seamen worked swiftly and silently, heightening the bulwarks and strengthening them. The three ship's anchors were, at Sir Nigel's command, carried into the waist, and tied to the mast, with twenty feet of cable between, each under the care of four seamen. Eight others were stationed with leather water-bags to quench any firearrows which might come aboard, while others were sent up the mast, to lie along the yard and drop stones or shoot arrows as the occasion served.

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They will lay us aboard on either quarter, my lord," cried the master. "See how they stretch out from each other! The Norman hath a mangonel upon the forecastle. See how they bend to the levers!

They are about to loose it."

"Aylward!" cried the knight, "pick your three trustiest archers, and see if you cannot do something to hinder their aim. Methinks they are within long arrow flight."

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Hordle John. One of the biggest, strongest, and bravest of the recruits. He came from Hordle, near Lymington.

The waist. The middle part of Alum Cliffs. The cliffs bounding

the ship.

Arbalests. Cross-bows.

Was wont. Used to.

Nocks. Notches, the places where the string was fastened to the bow.

Rede. Advice.

Bracer. A guard for the arm, used to prevent the friction of the bow-string on the coat.

The

Alum Bay, the north-west cor-
ner of the Isle of Wight.
Needles are a series of detached
rocks running west. Fresh-
water being on the south side,
ships lying near it would be
visible through the opening
between the land
Needles.

Shallops. Light boats.

and the

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"SEVENTEEN score paces," said the archer, running his eye backwards and forwards. "By my ten fingerbones! it would be a strange thing if we could not notch a mark at that distance. Here, Watkin of Sowley, Arnold, Long Williams, let us show the rogues that they have English bowmen to deal with."

The three archers named stood at the further end of the poop, balancing themselves with feet widely spread and bows drawn, until the heads of the clothyard arrows were level with the centre of the stave. "You are the surer, Watkin," said Aylward, standing by them with shaft upon string. "Do you take the rogue with the red coif. You two bring down the man with the head-piece, and I will hold myself ready if you miss. Now! they are about to loose her. Shoot, boys, or you will be too late.”

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