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
co