Chapter Chapter 16 · HOW THE YELLOW COG FOUGHT THE TWO ROVER GALLEYS.

. HOW THE YELLOW COG FOUGHT THE TWO ROVER GALLEYS.

The three vessels had been sweeping swiftly westwards, the cog still

well to the front, although the galleys were slowly drawing in upon

either quarter. To the left was a hard skyline unbroken by a sail. The

island already lay like a cloud behind them, while right in front

was St. Alban's Head, with Portland looming mistily in the farthest

distance. Alleyne stood by the tiller, looking backwards, the fresh wind

full in his teeth, the crisp winter air tingling on his face and blowing

his yellow curls from under his bassinet. His cheeks were flushed and

his eyes shining, for the blood of a hundred fighting Saxon ancestors

was beginning to stir in his veins.

“What was that?” he asked, as a hissing, sharp-drawn voice seemed to

whisper in his ear. The steersman smiled, and pointed with his foot to

where a short heavy cross-bow quarrel stuck quivering in the boards.

At the same instant the man stumbled forward upon his knees, and lay

lifeless upon the deck, a blood-stained feather jutting out from his

back. As Alleyne stooped to raise him, the air seemed to be alive with

the sharp zip-zip of the bolts, and he could hear them pattering on the

deck like apples at a tree-shaking.

“Raise two more mantlets by the poop-lanthorn,” said Sir Nigel quietly.

“And another man to the tiller,” cried the master-shipman.

“Keep them in play, Aylward, with ten of your men,” the knight

continued. “And let ten of Sir Oliver's bowmen do as much for the

Genoese. I have no mind as yet to show them how much they have to fear

from us.”

Ten picked shots under Aylward stood in line across the broad deck, and

it was a lesson to the young squires who had seen nothing of war to note

how orderly and how cool were these old soldiers, how quick the command,

and how prompt the carrying out, ten moving like one. Their comrades

crouched beneath the bulwarks, with many a rough jest and many a scrap

of criticism or advice. “Higher, Wat, higher!” “Put thy body into it,

Will!” “Forget not the wind, Hal!” So ran the muttered chorus, while

high above it rose the sharp twanging of the strings, the hiss of the

shafts, and the short “Draw your arrow! Nick your arrow! Shoot wholly

together!” from the master-bowman.

And now both mangonels were at work from the galleys, but so covered

and protected that, save at the moment of discharge, no glimpse could

be caught of them. A huge brown rock from the Genoese sang over their

heads, and plunged sullenly into the slope of a wave. Another from the

Norman whizzed into the waist, broke the back of a horse, and crashed

its way through the side of the vessel. Two others, flying together,

tore a great gap in the St. Christopher upon the sail, and brushed three

of Sir Oliver's men-at-arms from the forecastle. The master-shipman

looked at the knight with a troubled face.

“They keep their distance from us,” said he. “Our archery is over-good,

and they will not close. What defence can we make against the stones?”

“I think I may trick them,” the knight answered cheerfully, and passed

his order to the archers. Instantly five of them threw up their hands

and fell prostrate upon the deck. One had already been slain by a bolt,

so that there were but four upon their feet.

“That should give them heart,” said Sir Nigel, eyeing the galleys, which

crept along on either side, with a slow, measured swing of their great

oars, the water swirling and foaming under their sharp stems.

“They still hold aloof,” cried Hawtayne.

“Then down with two more,” shouted their leader. “That will do. Ma foi!

but they come to our lure like chicks to the fowler. To your arms, men!

The pennon behind me, and the squires round the pennon. Stand fast with

the anchors in the waist, and be ready for a cast. Now blow out the

trumpets, and may God's benison be with the honest men!”

As he spoke a roar of voices and a roll of drums came from either

galley, and the water was lashed into spray by the hurried beat of a

hundred oars. Down they swooped, one on the right, one on the left, the

sides and shrouds black with men and bristling with weapons. In heavy

clusters they hung upon the forecastle all ready for a spring--faces

white, faces brown, faces yellow, and faces black, fair Norsemen,

swarthy Italians, fierce rovers from the Levant, and fiery Moors from

the Barbary States, of all hues and countries, and marked solely by the

common stamp of a wild-beast ferocity. Rasping up on either side,

with oars trailing to save them from snapping, they poured in a

living torrent with horrid yell and shrill whoop upon the defenceless

merchantman.

But wilder yet was the cry, and shriller still the scream, when there

rose up from the shadow of those silent bulwarks the long lines of

the English bowmen, and the arrows whizzed in a deadly sleet among the

unprepared masses upon the pirate decks. From the higher sides of the

cog the bowmen could shoot straight down, at a range which was so short

as to enable a cloth-yard shaft to pierce through mail-coats or to

transfix a shield, though it were an inch thick of toughened wood.

One moment Alleyne saw the galley's poop crowded with rushing figures,

waving arms, exultant faces; the next it was a blood-smeared shambles,

with bodies piled three deep upon each other, the living cowering behind

the dead to shelter themselves from that sudden storm-blast of death.

On either side the seamen whom Sir Nigel had chosen for the purpose

had cast their anchors over the side of the galleys, so that the three

vessels, locked in an iron grip, lurched heavily forward upon the swell.

And now set in a fell and fierce fight, one of a thousand of which no

chronicler has spoken and no poet sung. Through all the centuries and

over all those southern waters nameless men have fought in nameless

places, their sole monuments a protected coast and an unravaged

country-side.

Fore and aft the archers had cleared the galleys' decks, but from either

side the rovers had poured down into the waist, where the seamen and

bowmen were pushed back and so mingled with their foes that it was

impossible for their comrades above to draw string to help them. It

was a wild chaos where axe and sword rose and fell, while Englishman,

Norman, and Italian staggered and reeled on a deck which was cumbered

with bodies and slippery with blood. The clang of blows, the cries of

the stricken, the short, deep shout of the islanders, and the fierce

whoops of the rovers, rose together in a deafening tumult, while the

breath of the panting men went up in the wintry air like the smoke from

a furnace. The giant Tete-noire, towering above his fellows and clad

from head to foot in plate of proof, led on his boarders, waving a

huge mace in the air, with which he struck to the deck every man who

approached him. On the other side, Spade-beard, a dwarf in height, but

of great breadth of shoulder and length of arm, had cut a road almost

to the mast, with three-score Genoese men-at-arms close at his heels.

Between these two formidable assailants the seamen were being slowly

wedged more closely together, until they stood back to back under the

mast with the rovers raging upon every side of them.

But help was close at hand. Sir Oliver Buttesthorn with his men-at-arms

had swarmed down from the forecastle, while Sir Nigel, with his three

squires, Black Simon, Aylward, Hordle John, and a score more, threw

themselves from the poop and hurled themselves into the thickest of the

fight. Alleyne, as in duty bound, kept his eyes fixed ever on his

lord and pressed forward close at his heels. Often had he heard of Sir

Nigel's prowess and skill with all knightly weapons, but all the tales

that had reached his ears fell far short of the real quickness and

coolness of the man. It was as if the devil was in him, for he sprang

here and sprang there, now thrusting and now cutting, catching blows on

his shield, turning them with his blade, stooping under the swing of an

axe, springing over the sweep of a sword, so swift and so erratic that

the man who braced himself for a blow at him might find him six paces

off ere he could bring it down. Three pirates had fallen before him, and

he had wounded Spade-beard in the neck, when the Norman giant sprang at

him from the side with a slashing blow from his deadly mace. Sir Nigel

stooped to avoid it, and at the same instant turned a thrust from the

Genoese swordsman, but, his foot slipping in a pool of blood, he fell

heavily to the ground. Alleyne sprang in front of the Norman, but his

sword was shattered and he himself beaten to the ground by a second

blow from the ponderous weapon. Ere the pirate chief could repeat it,

however, John's iron grip fell upon his wrist, and he found that for

once he was in the hands of a stronger man than himself.

Fiercely he strove to disengage his weapon, but Hordle John bent his arm

slowly back until, with a sharp crack, like a breaking stave, it turned

limp in his grasp, and the mace dropped from the nerveless fingers. In

vain he tried to pluck it up with the other hand. Back and back still

his foeman bent him, until, with a roar of pain and of fury, the giant

clanged his full length upon the boards, while the glimmer of a knife

before the bars of his helmet warned him that short would be his shrift

if he moved.

Cowed and disheartened by the loss of their leader, the Normans had

given back and were now streaming over the bulwarks on to their own

galley, dropping a dozen at a time on to her deck. But the anchor still

held them in its crooked claw, and Sir Oliver with fifty men was hard

upon their heels. Now, too, the archers had room to draw their bows

once more, and great stones from the yard of the cog came thundering and

crashing among the flying rovers. Here and there they rushed with wild

screams and curses, diving under the sail, crouching behind booms,

huddling into corners like rabbits when the ferrets are upon them,

as helpless and as hopeless. They were stern days, and if the honest

soldier, too poor for a ransom, had no prospect of mercy upon the

battle-field, what ruth was there for sea robbers, the enemies of

humankind, taken in the very deed, with proofs of their crimes still

swinging upon their yard-arm.

But the fight had taken a new and a strange turn upon the other side.

Spade-beard and his men had given slowly back, hard pressed by Sir

Nigel, Aylward, Black Simon, and the poop-guard. Foot by foot the

Italian had retreated, his armor running blood at every joint, his

shield split, his crest shorn, his voice fallen away to a mere gasping

and croaking. Yet he faced his foemen with dauntless courage, dashing

in, springing back, sure-footed, steady-handed, with a point which

seemed to menace three at once. Beaten back on to the deck of his

own vessel, and closely followed by a dozen Englishmen, he disengaged

himself from them, ran swiftly down the deck, sprang back into the

cog once more, cut the rope which held the anchor, and was back in an

instant among his crossbow-men. At the same time the Genoese sailors

thrust with their oars against the side of the cog, and a rapidly

widening rift appeared between the two vessels.

“By St. George!” cried Ford, “we are cut off from Sir Nigel.”

“He is lost,” gasped Terlake. “Come, let us spring for it.” The two

youths jumped with all their strength to reach the departing galley.

Ford's feet reached the edge of the bulwarks, and his hand clutching a

rope he swung himself on board. Terlake fell short, crashed in among the

oars, and bounded off into the sea. Alleyne, staggering to the side, was

about to hurl himself after him, but Hordle John dragged him back by the

girdle.

“You can scarce stand, lad, far less jump,” said he. “See how the blood

rips from your bassinet.”

“My place is by the flag,” cried Alleyne, vainly struggling to break

from the other's hold.

“Bide here, man. You would need wings ere you could reach Sir Nigel's

side.”

The vessels were indeed so far apart now that the Genoese could use the

full sweep of their oars, and draw away rapidly from the cog.

“My God, but it is a noble fight!” shouted big John, clapping his

hands. “They have cleared the poop, and they spring into the waist. Well

struck, my lord! Well struck, Aylward! See to Black Simon, how he storms

among the shipmen! But this Spade-beard is a gallant warrior. He rallies

his men upon the forecastle. He hath slain an archer. Ha! my lord is

upon him. Look to it, Alleyne! See to the whirl and glitter of it!”

“By heaven, Sir Nigel is down!” cried the squire.

“Up!” roared John. “It was but a feint. He bears him back. He drives

him to the side. Ah, by Our Lady, his sword is through him! They cry for

mercy. Down goes the red cross, and up springs Simon with the scarlet

roses!”

The death of the Genoese leader did indeed bring the resistance to an

end. Amid a thunder of cheering from cog and from galleys the forked

pennon fluttered upon the forecastle, and the galley, sweeping round,

came slowly back, as the slaves who rowed it learned the wishes of their

new masters.

The two knights had come aboard the cog, and the grapplings having been

thrown off, the three vessels now moved abreast. Through all the storm

and rush of the fight Alleyne had been aware of the voice of Goodwin

Hawtayne, the master-shipman, with his constant “Hale the bowline!

Veer the sheet!” and strange it was to him to see how swiftly the

blood-stained sailors turned from the strife to the ropes and back. Now

the cog's head was turned Francewards, and the shipman walked the deck,

a peaceful master-mariner once more.

“There is sad scath done to the cog, Sir Nigel,” said he. “Here is a

hole in the side two ells across, the sail split through the centre,

and the wood as bare as a friar's poll. In good sooth, I know not what I

shall say to Master Witherton when I see the Itchen once more.”

“By St. Paul! it would be a very sorry thing if we suffered you to be

the worse of this day's work,” said Sir Nigel. “You shall take these

galleys back with you, and Master Witherton may sell them. Then from the

moneys he shall take as much as may make good the damage, and the rest

he shall keep until our home-coming, when every man shall have his

share. An image of silver fifteen inches high I have vowed to the

Virgin, to be placed in her chapel within the Priory, for that she was

pleased to allow me to come upon this Spade-beard, who seemed to me from

what I have seen of him to be a very sprightly and valiant gentleman.

But how fares it with you, Edricson?”

“It is nothing, my fair lord,” said Alleyne, who had now loosened his

bassinet, which was cracked across by the Norman's blow. Even as he

spoke, however, his head swirled round, and he fell to the deck with the

blood gushing from his nose and mouth.

“He will come to anon,” said the knight, stooping over him and passing

his fingers through his hair. “I have lost one very valiant and gentle

squire this day. I can ill afford to lose another. How many men have

fallen?”

“I have pricked off the tally,” said Aylward, who had come aboard with

his lord. “There are seven of the Winchester men, eleven seamen, your

squire, young Master Terlake, and nine archers.”

“And of the others?”

“They are all dead--save only the Norman knight who stands behind you.

What would you that we should do with him?”

“He must hang on his own yard,” said Sir Nigel. “It was my vow and must

be done.”

The pirate leader had stood by the bulwarks, a cord round his arms,

and two stout archers on either side. At Sir Nigel's words he started

violently, and his swarthy features blanched to a livid gray.

“How, Sir Knight?” he cried in broken English. “Que dites vous? To hang,

le mort du chien! To hang!”

“It is my vow,” said Sir Nigel shortly. “From what I hear, you thought

little enough of hanging others.”

“Peasants, base roturiers,” cried the other. “It is their fitting death.

Mais Le Seigneur d'Andelys, avec le sang des rois dans ses veins! C'est

incroyable!”

Sir Nigel turned upon his heel, while two seamen cast a noose over the

pirate's neck. At the touch of the cord he snapped the bonds which bound

him, dashed one of the archers to the deck, and seizing the other round

the waist sprang with him into the sea.

“By my hilt, he is gone!” cried Aylward, rushing to the side. “They have

sunk together like a stone.”

“I am right glad of it,” answered Sir Nigel; “for though it was against

my vow to loose him, I deem that he has carried himself like a very

gentle and debonnaire cavalier.”