ke valiant men, using
every art and means in their power, they rode it out two days, though
buffeted by a terrible sea; but, at nightfall of the third day, the
tempest abating not, nay, waxing momently, they felt the ship open,
being then not far off Majorca, but knowing not where they were
neither availing to apprehend it either by nautical reckoning or by
sight, for that the sky was altogether obscured by clouds and dark
night; wherefore, seeing no other way of escape and having each
himself in mind and not others, they lowered a shallop into the water,
into which the officers cast themselves, choosing rather to trust
themselves thereto than to the leaking ship. The rest of the men in
the ship crowded after them into the boat, albeit those who had first
embarked therein opposed it, knife in hand,--and thinking thus to flee
from death, ran straight into it, for that the boat, availing not, for
the intemperance of the weather, to hold so many, foundered and they
perished one and all.

As for the ship, being driven by a furious wind and running very
swiftly, albeit it was now well nigh water-logged, (none being left on
board save the princess and her women, who all, overcome by the
tempestuous sea and by fear, lay about the decks as they were dead,)
it stranded upon a beach of the island of Majorca and such and so
great was the shock that it well nigh buried itself in the sand some
stone's cast from the shore, where it abode the night, beaten by the
waves, nor might the wind avail to stir it more. Broad day came and
the tempest somewhat abating, the princess, who was half dead, raised
her head and weak as she was, fell to calling now one, now another of
her household, but to no purpose, for that those she called were too
far distant. Finding herself unanswered of any and seeing no one, she
marvelled exceedingly and began to be sore afraid; then, rising up, as
best she might, she saw the ladies who were in her company and the
other women lying all about and trying now one and now another, found
few who gave any signs of life, the most of them being dead what with
sore travail of the stomach and what with affright; wherefore fear
redoubled upon her.

Nevertheless, necessity constraining her, for that she saw herself
alone there and had neither knowledge nor inkling where she was, she
so goaded those who were yet alive that she made them arise and
finding them unknowing whither the men were gone and seeing the ship
stran