The White Company Read online

  CHAPTER XVII. HOW THE YELLOW COG CROSSED THE BAR OF GIRONDE.

  For two days the yellow cog ran swiftly before a northeasterly wind, andon the dawn of the third the high land of Ushant lay like a mist uponthe shimmering sky-line. There came a plump of rain towards mid-dayand the breeze died down, but it freshened again before nightfall, andGoodwin Hawtayne veered his sheet and held head for the south. Nextmorning they had passed Belle Isle, and ran through the midst of a fleetof transports returning from Guienne. Sir Nigel Loring and Sir OliverButtesthorn at once hung their shields over the side, and displayedtheir pennons as was the custom, noting with the keenest interest theanswering symbols which told the names of the cavaliers who had beenconstrained by ill health or wounds to leave the prince at so critical atime.

  That evening a great dun-colored cloud banked up in the west, and ananxious man was Goodwin Hawtayne, for a third part of his crew had beenslain, and half the remainder were aboard the galleys, so that, withan injured ship, he was little fit to meet such a storm as sweeps overthose waters. All night it blew in short fitful puffs, heeling the greatcog over until the water curled over her lee bulwarks. As the wind stillfreshened the yard was lowered half way down the mast in the morning.Alleyne, wretchedly ill and weak, with his head still ringing fromthe blow which he had received, crawled up upon deck. Water-swept andaslant, it was preferable to the noisome, rat-haunted dungeons whichserved as cabins. There, clinging to the stout halliards of the sheet,he gazed with amazement at the long lines of black waves, each withits curling ridge of foam, racing in endless succession from out theinexhaustible west. A huge sombre cloud, flecked with livid blotches,stretched over the whole seaward sky-line, with long ragged streamerswhirled out in front of it. Far behind them the two galleys laboredheavily, now sinking between the rollers until their yards were levelwith the waves, and again shooting up with a reeling, scooping motionuntil every spar and rope stood out hard against the sky. On the leftthe low-lying land stretched in a dim haze, rising here and there intoa darker blur which marked the higher capes and headlands. The landof France! Alleyne's eyes shone as he gazed upon it. The land ofFrance!--the very words sounded as the call of a bugle in the ears ofthe youth of England. The land where their fathers had bled, the home ofchivalry and of knightly deeds, the country of gallant men, of courtlywomen, of princely buildings, of the wise, the polished and the sainted.There it lay, so still and gray beneath the drifting wrack--the home ofthings noble and of things shameful--the theatre where a new namemight be made or an old one marred. From his bosom to his lips came thecrumpled veil, and he breathed a vow that if valor and goodwill couldraise him to his lady's side, then death alone should hold him back fromher. His thoughts were still in the woods of Minstead and the old armoryof Twynham Castle, when the hoarse voice of the master-shipman broughtthem back once more to the Bay of Biscay.

  "By my troth, young sir," he said, "you are as long in the face as thedevil at a christening, and I cannot marvel at it, for I have sailedthese waters since I was as high as this whinyard, and yet I never sawmore sure promise of an evil night."

  "Nay, I had other things upon my mind," the squire answered.

  "And so has every man," cried Hawtayne in an injured voice. "Let theshipman see to it. It is the master-shipman's affair. Put it all upongood Master Hawtayne! Never had I so much care since first I blewtrumpet and showed cartel at the west gate of Southampton."

  "What is amiss then?" asked Alleyne, for the man's words were as gustyas the weather.

  "Amiss, quotha? Here am I with but half my mariners, and a hole in theship where that twenty-devil stone struck us big enough to fit the fatwidow of Northam through. It is well enough on this tack, but I wouldhave you tell me what I am to do on the other. We are like to havesalt water upon us until we be found pickled like the herrings in anEasterling's barrels."

  "What says Sir Nigel to it?"

  "He is below pricking out the coat-armor of his mother's uncle. 'Pesterme not with such small matters!' was all that I could get from him. Thenthere is Sir Oliver. 'Fry them in oil with a dressing of Gascony,' quothhe, and then swore at me because I had not been the cook. 'Walawa,'thought I, 'mad master, sober man'--so away forward to the archers.Harrow and alas! but they were worse than the others."

  "Would they not help you then?"

  "Nay, they sat tway and tway at a board, him that they call Aylwardand the great red-headed man who snapped the Norman's arm-bone, and theblack man from Norwich, and a score of others, rattling their dice inan archer's gauntlet for want of a box. 'The ship can scarce last muchlonger, my masters,' quoth I. 'That is your business, old swine's-head,'cried the black galliard. 'Le diable t'emporte,' says Aylward. 'A five,a four and the main,' shouted the big man, with a voice like the flap ofa sail. Hark to them now, young sir, and say if I speak not sooth."

  As he spoke, there sounded high above the shriek of the gale and thestraining of the timbers a gust of oaths with a roar of deep-chestedmirth from the gamblers in the forecastle.

  "Can I be of avail?" asked Alleyne. "Say the word and the thing is done,if two hands may do it."

  "Nay, nay, your head I can see is still totty, and i' faith little headwould you have, had your bassinet not stood your friend. All that may bedone is already carried out, for we have stuffed the gape with sails andcorded it without and within. Yet when we bale our bowline and veer thesheet our lives will hang upon the breach remaining blocked. See howyonder headland looms upon us through the mist! We must tack withinthree arrow flights, or we may find a rock through our timbers. Now, St.Christopher be praised! here is Sir Nigel, with whom I may confer."

  "I prythee that you will pardon me," said the knight, clutching his wayalong the bulwark. "I would not show lack of courtesy toward a worthyman, but I was deep in a matter of some weight, concerning which,Alleyne, I should be glad of your rede. It touches the question ofdimidiation or impalement in the coat of mine uncle, Sir John Leightonof Shropshire, who took unto wife the widow of Sir Henry Oglanderof Nunwell. The case has been much debated by pursuivants andkings-of-arms. But how is it with you, master shipman?"

  "Ill enough, my fair lord. The cog must go about anon, and I know nothow we may keep the water out of her."

  "Go call Sir Oliver!" said Sir Nigel, and presently the portly knightmade his way all astraddle down the slippery deck.

  "By my soul, master-shipman, this passes all patience!" he criedwrathfully. "If this ship of yours must needs dance and skip like aclown at a kermesse, then I pray you that you will put me into oneof these galeasses. I had but sat down to a flask of malvoisie and amortress of brawn, as is my use about this hour, when there comes acherking, and I find my wine over my legs and the flask in my lap, andthen as I stoop to clip it there comes another cursed cherk, and thereis a mortress of brawn stuck fast to the nape of my neck. At this momentI have two pages coursing after it from side to side, like hounds behinda leveret. Never did living pig gambol more lightly. But you have sentfor me, Sir Nigel?"

  "I would fain have your rede, Sir Oliver, for Master Hawtayne hath fearsthat when we veer there may come danger from the hole in our side."

  "Then do not veer," quoth Sir Oliver hastily. "And now, fair sir, I musthasten back to see how my rogues have fared with the brawn."

  "Nay, but this will scarce suffice," cried the shipman. "If we do notveer we will be upon the rocks within the hour."

  "Then veer," said Sir Oliver. "There is my rede; and now, Sir Nigel, Imust crave----"

  At this instant, however, a startled shout rang out from two seamen uponthe forecastle. "Rocks!" they yelled, stabbing into the air with theirforefingers. "Rocks beneath our very bows!" Through the belly of a greatblack wave, not one hundred paces to the front of them, there thrustforth a huge jagged mass of brown stone, which spouted spray as thoughit were some crouching monster, while a dull menacing boom and roarfilled the air.

  "Yare! yare!" screamed Goodwin Hawtayne, flinging himself upon the longpole which served as a tiller. "Cut the halliar
d! Haul her over! Lay hertwo courses to the wind!"

  Over swung the great boom, and the cog trembled and quivered within fivespear-lengths of the breakers.

  "She can scarce draw clear," cried Hawtayne, with his eyes from the sailto the seething line of foam. "May the holy Julian stand by us and thethrice-sainted Christopher!"

  "If there be such peril, Sir Oliver," quoth Sir Nigel, "it would bevery knightly and fitting that we should show our pennons. I pray you,Edricson, that you will command my guidon-bearer to put forward mybanner."

  "And sound the trumpets!" cried Sir Oliver. "In manus tuas, Domine! Iam in the keeping of James of Compostella, to whose shrine I shall makepilgrimage, and in whose honor I vow that I will eat a carp each yearupon 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 thefoam which hissed under the very bulge of the side. "Ah, Holy Mother, bewith us now!"

  As he spoke the cog rasped along the edge of the reef, and a long whitecurling sheet of wood was planed off from her side from waist to poop bya 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 theseamen and the archers.

  "The Virgin be praised!" cried the shipman, wiping his brow. "For thisshall 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 justicethat the fish should eat me. Now I must back to the cabin, for I havematters there which crave my attention."

  "Nay, Sir Oliver, you had best bide with us, and still show yourensign," Sir Nigel answered; "for, if I understand the matter aright, wehave but turned from one danger to the other."

  "Good Master Hawtayne," cried the boatswain, rushing aft, "the watercomes in upon us apace. The waves have driven in the sail wherewith westrove to stop the hole." As he spoke the seamen came swarming on to thepoop and the forecastle to avoid the torrent which poured through thehuge leak into the waist. High above the roar of the wind and the clashof the sea rose the shrill half-human cries of the horses, as they foundthe water rising rapidly around them.

  "Stop it from without!" cried Hawtayne, seizing the end of the wet sailwith which the gap had been plugged. "Speedily, my hearts, or we aregone!" Swiftly they rove ropes to the corners, and then, rushing forwardto the bows, they lowered them under the keel, and drew them tight insuch a way that the sail should cover the outer face of the gap. Theforce of the rush of water was checked by this obstacle, but it stillsquirted plentifully from every side of it. At the sides the horseswere above the belly, and in the centre a man from the poop could scarcetouch the deck with a seven-foot spear. The cog lay lower in the waterand the waves splashed freely over the weather bulwark.

  "I fear that we can scarce bide upon this tack," cried Hawtayne; "andyet the other will drive us on the rocks."

  "Might we not haul down sail and wait for better times?" suggested SirNigel.

  "Nay, we should drift upon the rocks. Thirty years have I been on thesea, and never yet in greater straits. Yet we are in the hands of theSaints."

  "Of whom," cried Sir Oliver, "I look more particularly to St. James ofCompostella, who hath already befriended us this day, and on whose feastI hereby vow that I shall eat a second carp, if he will but interpose asecond time."

  The wrack had thickened to seaward, and the coast was but a blurredline. Two vague shadows in the offing showed where the galeasses rolledand tossed upon the great Atlantic rollers. Hawtayne looked wistfully intheir direction.

  "If they would but lie closer we might find safety, even should the cogfounder. You will bear me out with good Master Witherton of Southamptonthat I have done all that a shipman might. It would be well that youshould doff camail and greaves, Sir Nigel, for, by the black rood! it islike enough that we shall have to swim for it."

  "Nay," said the little knight, "it would be scarce fitting that acavalier should throw off his harness for the fear of every puff of windand puddle of water. I would rather that my Company should gather roundme here on the poop, where we might abide together whatever God may bepleased to send. But, certes, Master Hawtayne, for all that my sightis none of the best, it is not the first time that I have seen thatheadland upon the left."

  The seaman shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed earnestly throughthe haze and spray. Suddenly he threw up his arms and shouted aloud inhis joy.

  "'Tis the point of La Tremblade!" he cried. "I had not thought that wewere as far as Oleron. The Gironde lies before us, and once over thebar, and under shelter of the Tour de Cordouan, all will be well withus. 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 andwell-nigh water-logged, staggered in for this haven of refuge. A bluffcape to the north and a long spit to the south marked the mouth of thenoble river, with a low-lying island of silted sand in the centre, allshrouded and curtained by the spume of the breakers. A line of brokenwater traced the dangerous bar, which in clear day and balmy weather hascracked the back of many a tall ship.

  "There is a channel," said Hawtayne, "which was shown to me by thePrince's own pilot. Mark yonder tree upon the bank, and see the towerwhich rises behind it. If these two be held in a line, even as we holdthem now, it may be done, though our ship draws two good ells more thanwhen she put forth."

  "God speed you, Master Hawtayne!" cried Sir Oliver. "Twice have we comescathless out of peril, and now for the third time I commend me to theblessed James of Compostella, to whom I vow----"

  "Nay, nay, old friend," whispered Sir Nigel. "You are like to bring ajudgment 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 youwould venture upon a third?"

  "I pray you that you will order the Company to lie down," criedHawtayne, who had taken the tiller and was gazing ahead with a fixedeye. "In three minutes we shall either be lost or in safety."

  Archers and seamen lay flat upon the deck, waiting in stolid silence forwhatever fate might come. Hawtayne bent his weight upon the tiller, andcrouched to see under the bellying sail. Sir Oliver and Sir Nigel stooderect with hands crossed in front of the poop. Down swooped the greatcog into the narrow channel which was the portal to safety. On eitherbow roared the shallow bar. Right ahead one small lane of black swirlingwater marked the pilot's course. But true was the eye and firm the handwhich guided. A dull scraping came from beneath, the vessel quiveredand shook, at the waist, at the quarter, and behind sounded that grimroaring of the waters, and with a plunge the yellow cog was over the barand speeding swiftly up the broad and tranquil estuary of the Gironde.