ight column of their
low-decked, lean, swift-sailing vessels, and we seemed to see another
such column lying-to behind.

"See you them?" I hastily cried to Samson.

"Ay, it means battle," said he.

But this good soldier, well used to fighting by sea, as well as by land,
was even now as cool and undismayed as though he but went about his
proper work.

Samson gave his orders with words sharp and few. And indeed it seemed
that all was arranged for us to meet such a defence of the coast by our
foes. For, like living beings, our great ships sailed swiftly into two
lines, strong and steady, with our vessel at the end of the second rank.
And all this was done without disorder or confusion, as men-at-arms will
form square on parade, and still we rode on the while, and Samson stood
watching the pirates' fleet that lay now in a long line in front of
L'Ancresse Bay awaiting our attack, as was meet for them to do.

The wind sprang up now, I remember, from the east, and I heard Samson
say in a glad tone----

"Thank Heaven for this breeze! It will prove the very messenger of
victory from God."

"Ay, in good truth," I said. "See, even now before we attack them, they
drift, though they would stay steady."

We were now well past Les Casquettes, and I could see clear the great
rocky headland of the Guet, and others as high and deadly, that I
remember not the names of, loom sharp and clear behind the pirates'
fleet.

The good breeze bore us on, and it was evident that, without feint or
device of any kind, we should face our foes fairly, and do battle
hand-to-hand with the pirates chiefly by boarding their craft.

And I was glad at this, for I had no fear of the result of the day's
fight if William's trained men-at-arms, suppled by a hundred battles,
met their foes face to face on a few square feet of wood. The pirates,
in their self-deceiving folly, that led them to a swift doom, had the
like thought of their own prowess, and indeed they had need be proud of
their wild fighting, being men who so fought as caring not for life or
escape.

The ships of our front rank sailed swiftly down on their foe, and each
crashed heavily into a pirate vessel. And with the loud crack of wood
against wood, and shattered prows, and rocking masts, uprose over the
clear water the hideous din of battle. High above all the cry of "Rou,"
and the shouting "Dieu aide," "God and St. Michael," "Duke William and
St. George." Then the wild diabolic crie