was your place to hold them together."

"I have but the eyes God gave me, fair sir, and they cannot see through
a cloud."

"Had it been fair, I, who am a soldier, could have kept them in company.
Since it was foul, we looked to you, who are called a mariner, to do so.
You have not done it. You have lost two of my ships ere the venture is
begun."

"Nay, fair sir, I pray you to consider--"

"Enough words!" said Knolles sternly. "Words will not give me back my
two hundred men. Unless I find them before I come to Saint-Malo, I swear
by Saint Wilfrid of Ripon that it will be an evil day for you! Enough!
Go forth and do what you may!"

For five hours with a light breeze behind them they lurched through the
heavy fog, the cold rain still matting their beards and shining on their
faces. Sometimes they could see a circle of tossing water for a bowshot
or so in each direction, and then the wreaths would crawl in upon them
once more and bank them thickly round. They had long ceased to blow the
trumpet for their missing comrades, but had hopes when clear weather
came to find them still in sight. By the shipman's reckoning they were
now about midway between the two shores.

Nigel was leaning against the bulwarks, his thoughts away in the
dingle at Cosford and out on the heather-clad slopes of Hindhead, when
something struck his ear. It was a thin clear clang of metal, pealing
out high above the dull murmur of the sea, the creak of the boom and the
flap of the sail. He listened, and again it was borne to his ear.

"Hark, my lord!" said he to Sir Robert. "Is there not a sound in the
fog?"

They both listened together with sidelong heads. Then it rang clearly
forth once more, but this time in another direction. It had been on the
bow; now it was on the quarter. Again it sounded, and again. Now it had
moved to the other bow; now back to the quarter again; now it was near;
and now so far that it was but a faint tinkle on the ear. By this time
every man on board, seamen, archers and men-at-arms, were crowding the
sides of the vessel. All round them there were noises in the darkness,
and yet the wall of fog lay wet against their very faces. And the noises
were such as were strange to their ears, always the same high musical
clashing.

The old shipman shook his head and crossed himself.

"In thirty years upon the waters I have never heard the like," said
he. "The Devil is ever loose in a fog. Well is he named the Prince of
Dark