Chapter VII: 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.