The White Company
pole which served as a tiller. “Cut the halliard! Haul her over! Lay her
two courses to the wind!”
Over swung the great boom, and the cog trembled and quivered within five
spear-lengths of the breakers.
“She can scarce draw clear,” cried Hawtayne, with his eyes from the sail
to the seething line of foam. “May the holy Julian stand by us and the
thrice-sainted Christopher!”
“If there be such peril, Sir Oliver,” quoth Sir Nigel, “it would be
very knightly and fitting that we should show our pennons. I pray you,
Edricson, that you will command my guidon-bearer to put forward my
banner.”
“And sound the trumpets!” cried Sir Oliver. “In manus tuas, Domine! I
am in the keeping of James of Compostella, to whose shrine I shall make
pilgrimage, and in whose honor I vow that I will eat a carp each year
upon his feast-day. Mon Dieu, but the waves roar! How is it with us now,
master-shipman?”
“We draw! We draw!” cried Hawtayne, with his eyes still fixed upon the
foam which hissed under the very bulge of the side. “Ah, Holy Mother, be
with us now!”
As he spoke the cog rasped along the edge of the reef, and a long white
curling sheet of wood was planed off from her side from waist to poop by
a jutting horn of the rock. At the same instant she lay suddenly over,
the sail drew full, and she plunged seawards amid the shoutings of the
seamen and the archers.
“The Virgin be praised!” cried the shipman, wiping his brow. “For this
shall bell swing and candle burn when I see Southampton Water once more.
Cheerily, my hearts! Pull yarely on the bowline!”
“By my soul! I would rather have a dry death,” quoth Sir Oliver.
“Though, Mort Dieu! I have eaten so many fish that it were but justice
that the fish should eat me. Now I must back to the cabin, for I have
matters there which crave my attention.”
“Nay, Sir Oliver, you had best bide with us, and still show your
ensign,” Sir Nigel answered; “for, if I understand the matter aright, we
have but turned from one danger to the other.”
“Good Master Hawtayne,” cried the boatswain, rushing aft, “the water
comes in upon us apace. The waves have driven in the sail wherewith we
strove to stop the hole.” As he spoke the seamen came swarming on to the
poop and the forecastle to avoid the torrent which poured through the
huge leak into the waist. High above the roar of the wind and the clash
of the sea rose the shrill half-human cries of the horses, as they found
the water rising rapidly around them.
“Stop it from without!” cried Hawtayne, seizing the end of the wet sail
with which the gap had been plugged. “Speedily, my hearts, or we are
gone!” Swiftly they rove ropes to the corners, and then, rushing forward
to the bows, they lowered them under the keel, and drew them tight in
such a way that the sail should cover the outer face of the gap. The
force of the rush of water was checked by this obstacle, but it still
squirted plentifully from every side of it. At the sides the horses
were above the belly, and in the centre a man from the poop could scarce
touch the deck with a seven-foot spear. The cog lay lower in the water
and the waves splashed freely over the weather bulwark.
“I fear that we can scarce bide upon this tack,” cried Hawtayne; “and
yet the other will drive us on the rocks.”
“Might we not haul down sail and wait for better times?” suggested Sir
Nigel.
“Nay, we should drift upon the rocks. Thirty years have I been on the
sea, and never yet in greater straits. Yet we are in the hands of the
Saints.”
“Of whom,” cried Sir Oliver, “I look more particularly to St. James of
Compostella, who hath already befriended us this day, and on whose feast
I hereby vow that I shall eat a second carp, if he will but interpose a
second time.”
The wrack had thickened to seaward, and the coast was but a blurred
line. Two vague shadows in the offing showed where the galeasses rolled
and tossed upon the great Atlantic rollers. Hawtayne looked wistfully in
their direction.
“If they would but lie closer we might find safety, even should the cog
founder. You will bear me out with good Master Witherton of Southampton
that I have done all that a shipman might. It would be well that you
should doff camail and greaves, Sir Nigel, for, by the black rood! it is
like enough that we shall have to swim for it.”
“Nay,” said the little knight, “it would be scarce fitting that a
cavalier should throw off his harness for the fear of every puff of wind
and puddle of water. I would rather that my Company should gather round
me here on the poop, where we might abide together whatever God may be
pleased to send. But, certes, Master Hawtayne, for all that my sight
is none of the best, it is not the first time that I have seen that
headland upon the left.”
The seaman shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed earnestly through
the haze and spray. Suddenly he threw up his arms and shouted aloud in
his joy.
“'Tis the point of La Tremblade!” he cried. “I had not thought that we
were as far as Oleron. The Gironde lies before us, and once over the
bar, and under shelter of the Tour de Cordouan, all will be well with
us. Veer again, my hearts, and bring her to try with the main course!”
The sail swung round once more, and the cog, battered and torn and
well-nigh water-logged, staggered in for this haven of refuge. A bluff
cape to the north and a long spit to the south marked the mouth of the
noble river, with a low-lying island of silted sand in the centre, all
shrouded and curtained by the spume of the breakers. A line of broken
water traced the dangerous bar, which in clear day and balmy weather has
cracked the back of many a tall ship.
“There is a channel,” said Hawtayne, “which was shown to me by the
Prince's own pilot. Mark yonder tree upon the bank, and see the tower
which rises behind it. If these two be held in a line, even as we hold
them now, it may be done, though our ship draws two good ells more than
when she put forth.”
“God speed you, Master Hawtayne!” cried Sir Oliver. “Twice have we come
scathless out of peril, and now for the third time I commend me to the
blessed James of Compostella, to whom I vow----”
“Nay, nay, old friend,” whispered Sir Nigel. “You are like to bring a
judgment upon us with these vows, which no living man could accomplish.
Have I not already heard you vow to eat two carp in one day, and now you
would venture upon a third?”
“I pray you that you will order the Company to lie down,” cried
Hawtayne, who had taken the tiller and was gazing ahead with a fixed
eye. “In three minutes we shall either be lost or in safety.”
Archers and seamen lay flat upon the deck, waiting in stolid silence for
whatever fate might come. Hawtayne bent his weight upon the tiller, and
crouched to see under the bellying sail. Sir Oliver and Sir Nigel stood
erect with hands crossed in front of the poop. Down swooped the great
cog into the narrow channel which was the portal to safety. On either
bow roared the shallow bar. Right ahead one small lane of black swirling
water marked the pilot's course. But true was the eye and firm the hand
which guided. A dull scraping came from beneath, the vessel quivered
and shook, at the waist, at the quarter, and behind sounded that grim
roaring of the waters, and with a plunge the yellow cog was over the bar
and speeding swiftly up the broad and tranquil estuary of the Gironde.
CHAPTER XVIII. HOW SIR NIGEL LORING PUT A PATCH UPON HIS EYE.
It was on the morning of Friday, the eight-and-twentieth day of
November, two days before the feast of St. Andrew, that the cog and her
two prisoners, after a weary tacking up the Gironde and the Garonne,
dropped anchor at last in front of the noble city of Bordeaux. With
wonder and admiration, Alleyne, leaning over the bulwarks, gazed at the
forest of masts, the swarm of boats darting hither and thither on the
bosom of the broad curving stream, and the gray crescent-shaped city
which stretched with many a tower and minaret along the western shore.
Never had he in his quiet life seen so great a town, nor was there in
the whole of England, save London alone, one which might match it in
size or in wealth. Here came the merchandise of all the fair countries
which are watered by the Garonne and the Dordogne--the cloths of the
south, the skins of Guienne, the wines of the Medoc--to be borne away to
Hull, Exeter, Dartmouth, Bristol or Chester, in exchange for the wools
and woolfels of England. Here too dwelt those famous smelters and
welders who had made the Bordeaux steel the most trusty upon earth, and
could give a temper to lance or to sword which might mean dear life to
its owner. Alleyne could see the smoke of their forges reeking up in the
clear morning air. The storm had died down now to a gentle breeze, which
wafted to his ears the long-drawn stirring bugle-calls which sounded
from the ancient ramparts.
“Hola, mon petit!” said Aylward, coming up to where he stood. “Thou art
a squire now, and like enough to win the golden spurs, while I am still
the master-bowman, and master-bowman I shall bide. I dare scarce wag
my tongue so freely with you as when we tramped together past Wilverley
Chase, else I might be your guide now, for indeed I know every house in
Bordeaux as a friar knows the beads on his rosary.”
“Nay, Aylward,” said Alleyne, laying his hand upon the sleeve of his
companion's frayed jerkin, “you cannot think me so thrall as to throw
aside an old friend because I have had some small share of good fortune.
I take it unkind that you should have thought such evil of me.”
“Nay, mon gar. 'Twas but a flight shot to see if the wind blew steady,
though I were a rogue to doubt it.”
“Why, had I not met you, Aylward, at the Lynhurst inn, who can say where
I had now been! Certes, I had not gone to Twynham Castle, nor become
squire to Sir Nigel, nor met----” He paused abruptly and flushed to his
hair, but the bowman was too busy with his own thoughts to notice his
young companion's embarrassment.
“It was a good hostel, that of the 'Pied Merlin,'” he remarked. “By my
ten finger bones! when I hang bow on nail and change my brigandine for a
tunic, I might do worse than take over the dame and her business.”
“I thought,” said Alleyne, “that you were betrothed to some one at
Christchurch.”
“To three,” Aylward answered moodily, “to three. I fear I may not go
back to Christchurch. I might chance to see hotter service in Hampshire
than I have ever done in Gascony. But mark you now yonder lofty turret
in the centre, which stands back from the river and hath a broad banner
upon the summit. See the rising sun flashes full upon it and sparkles
on the golden lions. 'Tis the royal banner of England, crossed by the
prince's label. There he dwells in the Abbey of St. Andrew, where he
hath kept his court these years back. Beside it is the minster of the
same saint, who hath the town under his very special care.”
“And how of yon gray turret on the left?”
“'Tis the fane of St. Michael, as that upon the right is of St. Remi.
There, too, above the poop of yonder nief, you see the towers of Saint
Croix and of Pey Berland. Mark also the mighty ramparts which are
pierced by the three water-gates, and sixteen others to the landward
side.”
“And how is it, good Aylward, that there comes so much music from the
town? I seem to hear a hundred trumpets, all calling in chorus.”
“It would be strange else, seeing that all the great lords of England
and of Gascony are within the walls, and each would have his trumpeter
blow as loud as his neighbor, lest it might be thought that his dignity
had been abated. Ma foi! they make as much louster as a Scotch army,
where every man fills himself with girdle-cakes, and sits up all night
to blow upon the toodle-pipe. See all along the banks how the pages