THE SEA-WOLVES
"The galley is gone!" exclaimed Matteo, as he emerged from the
stern-castle.
"Ay, and a good riddance," returned the master of the cog.
Messer Nicholas was holding the tiller of his craft, steering her out
of the harbour entrance. The spring breeze blew rich and warm off
the land behind them. Below the little poop on which the comrades
stood, the sailors ran to and fro about their duties, hauling at
ropes, stacking cordage and dressing sails. Hastings port already
was become a toy town set on the harbour's rim.
"You seem not to like our Cypriot friend," remarked Hugh with a smile.
"Marry, and why should I, fair sir?" retorted the shipman fiercely.
"A runagate knave, you may swear. What business has he trading in
these seas? Let him keep to his own preserves, say I. The Inner Sea
for his kidney, and the Narrow Seas and the North Ocean for us of the
Cinque Ports. 'Tis sorry enough having to contend with the Frenchmen
and the Flemings--let alone our good King John!"
It was evident that Messer Nicholas liked the sound of his own voice,
especially when it dealt with his own affairs, and Matteo hastened to
Hugh's rescue.
"How long is the passage to Rouen?" he enquired.
"That is a question no wise shipman would answer on the very morn of
his setting forth upon the voyage," replied Messer Nicholas
importantly. "For, look you, lords, how can mortal man prophesy the
course of the wind an hour hence?"
"We will cry your pardon for the absurdity of that question,"
interceded Hugh, "an you tell us at least the distance betwixt the
two ports."
"Ah, fair sir, that is a different matter. I make the distance
betwixt Hastings port and Rouen quay a matter of fifty leagues or
maybe sixty, depending, as I said, on the wind and the course we
take. It hath been sailed by the _Alice_ in three days, and I
venture to predict she will do it again."
"So, good shipman, you are not above prophecy, after all?" jeered
Matteo.
"In my own terms--no; that is true," acknowledged Messer Nicholas
composedly.
And he took advantage of the opportunity unwisely afforded by Matteo,
to launch into a lengthy disquisition on the mystery of
navigation--to which craft, he asserted, St. Peter had belonged, with
conspicuous success, as well as divers other distinguished and
saintly characters. Matteo and Hugh were forced to flee to escape
the deluge of words. In the waist of the ship they sought out Ralph
to inquire the condition of their horses. But they were more
speedily interested in Ralph himself. He was leaning over the
bulwarks amidships, his head hanging on his hand, and a pasty green
look upon his face. At sight of them he gasped and sank down on the
deck.
"Oh, Messer Hugh," he moaned. "St. Cuthbert be my witness, y'have
brought me to my death! Only this morning I was mine old self. Now,
I am ridden with the plague or some such parlous complaint I make no
doubt. My end is on me. Would there be a priest on board, do you
think?"
Hugh was much concerned by this plaint, but Matteo laughed and
clapped Ralph on the shoulder.
"An you suffer never any illness more dangerous than this you must
burn an hundred candles at your name-altar," he said. "Take heart,
man. 'Tis naught but the sickness of the sea. You have been below in
the stenches of the hold, and that, with the motion of the ship, hath
disturbed the comfort of your stomach. Let the clean breeze fan your
face, and you will be whole anon."
"Mayhap, mayhap," answered Ralph, "but I am mortal weak in my body
for a hale man, Messer Matteo. Could you not be having the shipman
turn about and leave me behind? I have no bowels for this kind of
venturing."
"There will be shame in your heart for those words in a few hours,
Ralph," said Hugh sternly. "Do you come up to the poop with us and
lie out there in the open. Perchance that chicken-heart of yours
will win back the allegiance of your belly."
Groaning and protesting, Ralph suffered himself to be led up the
steep ladder-stairs to the narrow space in front of the stern-castle,
where the rudder-post came up through the deck-planking. Here he was
deposited in a recumbent position, and very shortly, lulled by the
rocking of the cog and the creak of the rigging, he dropped off to
sleep--to the great relief of Hugh, who was half-inclined to believe
him really smitten by one of the little-known epidemic diseases which
ravaged the mediæval world.
"But an it be the sea-illness you speak of," remonstrated Hugh, "why
have I escaped? I am as new to it as Ralph, and must as surely
succumb."
"Not so," objected Matteo. "There are men who never feel the
ship-nausea, and there are others--stout captains of the Venetians,
Pisans, Genoese and other seafaring races, I have known--must always
inure themselves anew to the experience at the start of each voyage."
"They must be greatly wedded to the sea to suffer such discomfort."
"Ay, that they are. You will comprehend it when you meet the
Venetians and see their wonderful city. Ah, Hugh, there are a people
for you! They have made the sea their servant, and on it they
traffic to the ends of the world. Kings and Empires fear them.
Without them our barons of Outremer could not stand a month against
the Saracens."
"Ay, they have the idea of it," chimed in Messer Nicholas from his
post by the tiller, now in the hands of one of his subordinates.
"With them merchants are nobles. To be great, in their estimation,
is to be successful in trade. They have none of your finicking
notions of gentilesse."
"But surely, good Messer Shipman, you will admit that a strong feudal
structure is necessary to the welfare of any state," said Hugh
haughtily. "A community of merchants could never last long, if it
came to a question of the sword."
"Ah, lordling, but that's where you are wrong," returned the shipman.
"The Venetians are warriors, as well as traders. They fight for what
they want, and they will fight anybody to keep what they once get
their hands upon. Is it not so, fair sir?" he appealed to Matteo.
"Ay, Hugh, that is the right of it," agreed Matteo. "They are a
peculiar people. There are none like them, save it be some of the
free cities of Germany and the Flemings."
"I have had some small dealings with the Venetians," boasted Messer
Nicholas. "By St. Edward, they should know me!" He gave a jaunty
twist to his moustaches. "Warriors though they are, they met their
match when they tried to tell Nicholas Dunning where he could not
trade. I am a bad man to threaten, lords. I will not down my head
for any man on the seas. Wherever I go, I am an Englishman, and I
say to all shipmen, of every tongue: Sirs, I say----"
A cry of alarm rose from the forecastle.
"What's that? What's that?" demanded Messer Nicholas.
He ran to the larboard rail and peered under the edge of the great
square-sail on the mizzen-mast.
"Oh, 'tis the galley," he said carelessly. "But what does the fellow
on this course? He makes back for Hastings." Of a sudden his face
went ashen grey. "The Red Crescent! By Our Lady, a Saracen corsair
in the Narrow Seas!"
He wept and wrung his hands.
"Oh, lords, I never thought to see this! And there is great store of
wealth in the hold. What shall I do? I am a peaceful shipman, and
yon varlets will have me at their mercy. What shall I do?"
"Put your ship in order for defence," directed Hugh. "St. James,
man, are you sunk before you are come to battle?"
"Take advantage of this wind," suggested Matteo. "Bear away, so that
you have them over your stern."
A flicker of hope lighted the shipman's face, and he bellowed an
order to the sailor at the tiller. The cog heeled and bore off
across the wind, as it were. The galley was plainly revealed by this
manoeuvre to the comrades on the poop. The lean, slender craft, half
as long again as the cog, but less than half as high out of the
water, raced along, with foaming oars. Steel flashed on fore and
stern castles and amongst the rowers. From her mast floated the
dreaded ensign of the Moslem rovers.
"He gains on us still," whined Messer Nicholas. "We shall be
butchered like sheep."
"Ay, and you bestir not yourself to give the Paynims a warm
greeting," returned Matteo.
The jongleur swept a calculating eye over the two speeding vessels.
Aboard the galley all was quiet. The decks of the cog were crowded
with disorderly groups whose lamentations rose momentarily louder.
"We have some small chance, Hugh," he said calmly. "The galley is
swift and in this light wind will easily overtake us. 'Tis a
question only of time, to be protracted somewhat by skill in
ship-handling."
Hugh nodded.
"We are beginning our adventures earlier than had been my
expectation. To say truth, I see not what we may do, save it be to
make a good end."
"Nay, we are not yet in that plight. I have a plan. Messer Shipman,
bid one of your fellows bring me a half-keg of tar, and you have such
a commodity in your stores. Eke a barrel of oil."
The shipman goggled at him.
"It shall be done, fair sir," he answered finally. "Ah, good my
lords, I pray you save us from these demons of corsairs. They will
flay us alive, an we do not accept their Al-Koran--or belike they
will slay us anyway for sufficiency of slaves to pull at their oars.
Do but----"
"Silence," interrupted Matteo. "You talk like a woman--or a Greek.
Have you arms for your crew?"
"Some few."
"Then do you serve them out. Make haste. And fetch me the tar and
oil."
As Messer Nicholas disappeared down the poop-ladder, Hugh turned to
his friend in amazement.
"Tar and oil!" he exclaimed. "What engine of defence are you
devising, Matteo?"
For answer, Matteo led him inside the stern-castle, where a bed of
coals glowed in a stone oven. On it their breakfast had been cooked
by Ralph.
"Here we have fire," announced Matteo, "When I have procured the oil
and tar I shall compound a very fair copy of the famed Greek fire--a
most deadly compound, Hugh, and a weapon these corsairs will not be
expecting from a peaceful merchantman. 'Tis a surprise they will not
relish, or I know not the breed."
Hugh clapped him on the back.
"Hast a most fertile brain," he cried. "There is a plan, indeed.
But what is my part therein?"
"Your part is to put some spirit into these scurvy shipmen, and nerve
them to come to blows with the Saracens. 'Tis vital for my plan that
we should be close aboard the galley before I launch my stroke."
"Trust me," responded Hugh heartily. "I will keep them to it, an I
have to slay them myself. Now, whilst you brew your witches'
draught, I will see if the prospect of a fight hath medicinal powers
on Ralph's carcass."
Worn out by his retching nausea, Ralph had slumbered through all the
uproar on the cog's decks, and Hugh found waking him no easy task.
"What ado now, Messer Hugh?" he protested. "A-hum! Can't you let a
body be? My stomach is clean dropped down through my heels, and the
top of my head is gone."
"Alas, then, you may have no share in the fight," said Hugh with
studied indifference.
Ralph interrupted a leisurely stretch to glance sharply upward at his
master.
"A fight, say you? Certes, Messer Hugh, you are jesting."
"Never a jest."
"What manner of fight can men have out on this wobbly water that will
not let a body stand steady on the two legs under him?" returned
Ralph sceptically.
"If you would but stand on those two legs of yours, you might see the
beginning of such a fight," answered Hugh.
His curiosity at last aroused, Ralph caught hold of a piece of
rigging beside him and made shift to struggle to his knees.
"I see no fight," he complained. "There is naught but another
devil's machine like to this bouncing over the water."
"Ay, Ralph, and 'tis full of hairy blackamoors and bloody Saracens
with a mind to cut your heart out."
"Saracens, Messer Hugh? What do they hereabouts?"
Hugh became serious.
"They are sent by my enemy you wot of--he who sent the fellow with
the knife and the greenwood men. This is an ill day for us, Ralph,
and if we are to win forth from it we must fight as becomes
Englishmen."
Silently, Ralph clambered to his feet and stood swaying against the
rail.
"I will seek out my bow and mail," he said. "My muscles seem flabby
as a babe's, Messer Hugh, but I will do what I may."
In the waist of the cog Messer Nicholas dealt out a sparse supply of
bows, hangers and spears to the trembling crew. But Hugh realised
that the shipmen were so chicken-hearted the weapons were of little
use to them. Messer Nicholas, himself, shuddered as he fingered the
blade he had allotted to his own portion.
"What now, merry men all," Hugh addressed them cheerily. "Take heart
o' grace! Bethink you, we are in a sad pickle, but an we do not make
it easier, 'tis like to be worse. The Saracens will see to it none
gets back to Hastings port to tell of a lost cargo. There is but one
safe path, wot you all, and that is to hurl the villains into the sea
when they would come aboard."
"Brave words, lordling," snarled Messer Nicholas, "but you are clad
in steel. We have no hauberks to protect us against arbalests and
arrows. What shall we do?"
"Fear naught," answered Hugh good-temperedly. "I have by me a
longbowman can stand off all the archers in Paynimry. What ho,
Ralph?"
The giant descended the poop ladder with compressed lips and a very
white face. He lurched a little in his gait, but he tried hard to
smile in reply.
"Why, Messer Hugh," he said, "an I ever get the hang of the crooked
lifts of this cursed sea, I shall contrive somewhat with my bow. But
this illness which hath gripped me is no friend of the belly.
And----"
"A truce to your belly, Ralph," Hugh broke in. "Take station beside
me here at the foot of the poop-ladder. Messer Nicholas, bid your
varlets spread out under the rail, and place those with bows on the
forecastle."
When these dispositions were made, Hugh looked over-side to see the
galley dashing towards them only a bowshot distant. Her decks,
crammed with men, were absolutely quiet. Not an arrow or bolt
heralded her advance. Every sail of the cog was drawing, but,
propelled by her swinging oars, the galley overhauled the sailing
ship almost as if she had been standing still. As the Saracen's bow
came abreast of the stern-castle, Matteo stepped out on the cog's
poop beside the helmsman, who crouched low in fear of the arrow-hail
which he knew would first be aimed at him.
"Art prepared, Hugh?" Matteo called down.
Hugh waved his hand along the deck.
"You see," he returned. "And you?"
"The brew is in the cauldron."
Before Hugh could answer, the galley drew alongside some twenty ells
away. Her oars churned the water into foam that splashed up to the
oar-lock ports. Her decks were abristle with pointed Saracen helms
and gleaming scimiters. In a cage atop of her one mast amidships
three or four archers lurked. At a word of command shouted from her
stern-castle, the oars were backed and her headway checked until she
was travelling at the same pace as the cog.
Dark, ferocious faces stared across the narrow gap of water at the
helpless merchantman, but not a hand was raised to hurl a spear or
draw a bow. The silence was broken by a hail.
"Ho, Englishmen, is Messer Nicholas Dunning there?"
A swart, stocky figure stepped to the railing of the galley's
stern-castle. It was Messer Bartolommeo Caraducci. He waited
expectantly, but Messer Nicholas cowered abjectly behind a water-butt
under the stairs to the fore-castle. It was Hugh forced him from
cover.
"What would you, noble sir?" he quavered.
"This: I am after a bigger prize than your beggarly cargo or the
lives of your rascal crew. Give me what I want, and I let you go
free."
Messer Nicholas picked up courage.
"I will pay any price in reason," he replied.
"I want no price," the corsair roared back. "You have three voyagers
on board. They are no friends of yours. I have an interest in them.
Deliver them to me--or suffer me to come and take them--and I will do
you no harm."
Messer Nicholas hesitated and cast an evil look at his three
passengers.
"Careful, Messer Nicholas," said Hugh softly. "You are on dangerous
ground."
"Fair sir, I would do you no harm," clamoured the shipman. "Indeed,
and I would not. But what choice is a man to make in such a case? I
cannot sacrifice the lives of all my crew."
At these words, his men rallied around him, obviously in complete
agreement with his sentiments. Hugh tried again.
"Your names would be infamous an it became known you had driven such
a bargain," he declared. "More, you would be hung by the King's men."
Messer Nicholas shook his head stubbornly.
"I would rather chance that than certain death and torture. And we
are not giving you up. It is only that we cannot protect you."
The galley still kept abreast of the cog, gradually narrowing the
distance between them. Her commander hailed impatiently.
"Well, what say you, English dogs?" he cried. "Death and torment--by
the Prophet's Beard, I will flay you alive, inch by inch!--or a fair
bargain?"
"We ag----"
Messer Nicholas broke off his acceptance, as Matteo appeared on the
poop, with a flaming torch in his hand.
"The Saracen does well to call you English dogs," shouted the
jongleur scornfully. "Dogs you would be to give up your own
countrymen to the Paynim hounds! See you this torch? With it--and
what I have by me--I could kindle your ship in flames at one stroke.
I give you a new choice: fight off the corsairs or else prepare to
perish like rats. I swear I will put this torch to the cog, an you
refuse to stand by us."
A new chorus of protests went up at this threat. Messer Nicholas
fell upon his knees, hands raised imploringly.
"Spare my beautiful ship, fair sir," he begged. "Bethink you, is it
not more Christian to give up your own few lives and save ours, than
to drag us all down to death together?"
"You fools!" snapped Matteo. "Do you believe the Saracens would keep
the bargain, if you made it? They would come aboard, and once aboard
they would massacre all at will. Stand to your arms, and fight like
men. We will aid you, an you do as I say. We shall beat the
corsairs yet."
Hugh seized the moment for definite action.
"Shoot me that swart fellow on the galley's stern-castle," he
whispered to Ralph. "Quick, man, before they suspect!"
Ralph notched his arrow, drew the bow-string to his shoulder and
loosed. But the arrow slipped over Messer Bartolommeo's shoulder and
sank to the feathers in the breast of a man behind him. A yell of
anger rose from the galley. Her commander stepped back from his
exposed position, and a cloud of arrows and cross-bow bolts tore
through the cog's sails or spatted into her planking. One of the
sailors was pierced in the throat and fell choking.
"A sad miss, Ralph," rebuked his master.
"Ay, that it was," the giant agreed shamefacedly. "But my muscles
are that flabby I am not myself. Give me time, Messer Hugh."
He drew again, and the arrow found its mark in the crowded mass on
the galley's stern-castle. Encouraged by his example and enraged by
the discharges against themselves, the archers on the cog's
fore-castle also loosed a feeble flight of arrows that took toll in
the galley's runway between the rowing-benches.
There was no longer any doubt of the galley's intentions. Urged on
by her scores of rowers, she surged against the cog's hull, her
starboard oars allowed to hang loose as she jammed alongside. Her
archers shot fast and thick; her boarding-parties hung poised on
rails. The war-cries of the East came shrill and challenging from
the throats of her crew.
With a shock the two craft drove together, and the advance-guard of
the Paynims leaped to the cog's deck. Hugh sprang at them, sword in
hand, shield on arm, shouting his war-cry:
"A Chesby! St. James!"
But his onset was almost unsupported. The English shipmen, unmailed
and crudely armed, shrank before the ready steel of the attackers.
They were beaten back to the stern-castle. For a time Ralph's arrows
helped to hold off the advance. Then they ceased, and Hugh fought
sternly with shut lips, never looking behind him, for always he had
at least three foes to contend with at once. He prayed in his heart
that whatever Matteo's plan might be it would be tried soon.
He had his back to the poop-stairs and was wondering how he could
climb them in full armour and harassed by a swarm of foes, when he
was conscious of a bright flame that soared high overhead and a wild
screaming from the galley. Simultaneously, the pressure in front
slackened. He eased his sword by slaying the enemy nearest to him,
and looked across the railing toward the galley. It was afire just
under the stern-castle. Whilst he looked, the cog began slowly to
forge ahead, and there was another flash of light above him. A
flaming barrel curved down from the poop and fell amongst the
galley's rowers, spitting fire to right and left.
"Shoot me that helmsman, Ralph!" he heard Matteo cry. "Ay, so!"
At the foot of the mizzenmast an isolated group of Saracens were
struggling for their lives against the cog's crew, now fighting like
men-at-arms. The rest of those who had boarded the cog were dead or
thrown overboard. Hugh turned and climbed wearily to the poop, where
Ralph was just loosing an arrow as he appeared.
"I have made amends, Messer Hugh," exclaimed the giant happily.
"That is the third heathen I have shot at the galley's helm."
"He hath done wonders for a sick man," applauded Matteo, who stood
beside him. "But where had we all been without your sword, Hugh?"
"Not so," said Hugh, bewildered. "'Twas your fire-trick beat them
off. Where are they?"
Matteo pointed toward the galley, rolling broadside onto the waves,
flames rising from her in two places.
"'Tis an old trick in Outremer," he exulted. "But like most old
tricks it works. An they have no sand in their ballast or vinegar, I
fear me the Paynims will all perish, Hugh. Water will not quench the
flames I launched upon them."
Hugh looked his admiration.
"You should be a great captain some day, Matteo," he said.
"Where would I have been without your sword or Ralph's bow?" replied
the jongleur. "A trick is a trick, comrades; but behind it there
must be courage and sharp steel. This hath been a fight worth
remembering. How now, Ralph? Shall we set you ashore?"
Ralph grinned sheepishly.
"I cannot just say why it is, lords," he answered, "but the sickness
in my belly hath left me and now I am a-hungered for food."
"A-hungered, quotha?" panted the blustering voice of Messer Nicholas,
as he stepped on the poop. "You shall be satisfied, sir archer, for
bravely have you shot. Ay, lords, it hath been a good fight,
well-fought on all sides. Never have I seen better. There hath been
goose-flesh on my chest ere this, but now----"
"Look you, an you would not have goose-flesh on every limb, do you
bring hither the best your miserable larder affords," threatened
Matteo. "A good fight, quotha!" he mimicked.
"Your hunger for bargaining with Saracens will make a brave tale in
Rouen, Messer Shipman," gibed Hugh.
"Oh, fair sirs! I pray you, fair sirs! Prithee, do you----"
The comrades lay flat on the heaving deck, and roared their
satisfaction at his discomfiture.