nd of
song and merry talk the well-timed fall of the oars and swash of driven
waters made refrain.

They had reached the harbor's mouth. The open ocean lay before them. In
a few minutes more they would be sweeping over the Atlantic's broad
expanse. Suddenly there came a frightful crash; a shock that threw
numbers of the passengers headlong to the deck, and tore the oars from
the rowers' hands; a cry of terror that went up from three hundred
throats. It is said that some of the people in the far-off ships heard
that cry, faint, far, despairing, borne to them over miles of sea, and
asked themselves in wonder what it could portend.

It portended too much wine and too little heed. The vessel, carelessly
steered, had struck upon a rock, the _Catee-raze_, at the harbor's
mouth, with such, violence that a gaping wound was torn in her prow, and
the waters instantly began to rush in.

The White Ship was injured, was filling, would quickly sink. Wild
consternation prevailed. There was but one boat, and that small.
Fitzstephen, sobered by the concussion, hastily lowered it, crowded into
it the prince and a few nobles, and bade them hastily to push off and
row to the land.

"It is not far," he said, "and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must
die."

They obeyed. The boat was pushed off, the oars dropped into the water,
it began to move from the ship. At that moment, amid the cries of horror
and despair on the sinking vessel, came one that met the prince's ear in
piteous appeal. It was the voice of his sister, Marie, the countess of
Perch, crying to him for help.

In that moment of frightful peril Prince William's heart beat true.

"Row back at any risk!" he cried. "My sister must be saved. I cannot
bear to leave her."

They rowed back. But the hope that from that panic-stricken multitude
one woman could be selected was wild. No sooner had the boat reached the
ship's side than dozens madly sprung into it, in such numbers that it
was overturned. At almost the same moment the White Ship went down,
dragging all within reach into her eddying vortex. Death spread its
sombre wings over the spot where, a few brief minutes before, life and
joy had ruled.

When the tossing eddies subsided, the pale moonlight looked down on but
two souls of all that gay and youthful company. These clung to a spar
which had broken loose from the mast and floated on the waves, or to the
top of the mast itself, which stood above the surface.

"Only