g."

"Then, Brother Hugo, I need not voyage to Normandy to taste battle under
Duke William."

"The battle," said Hugo, "will be hot enough before these very walls.
Therefore thou shalt be my esquire and learn to taste blood under my
command."

Indeed I had no higher desire than this, and so I said.

* * * * *

Now, it was not many days after these words, one afternoon about
evensong, a summons came to Hugo from the watchman on the wall at Vale
Castle. He called me to go with him. We swiftly reached the rampart, the
watchman saying nothing, simply pointed to the northward, and then we
saw a very fleet of ships--pirate ships, we felt sure--bearing steadily
towards Grand Havre. And one that seemed longer and heavier than the
rest ran far ahead.

"They are making for their anchorage in Moulin Huet," said Hugo, "and it
were well for our islanders to be prepared this night. Light the beacon,
honest Bertrand, let it carry its bright word from Vale to Ivy Castle,
from Ivy to St. Pierre, from St. Pierre to Jerbourg, though they lie at
anchor below, to Torteval and far Lihou, and thou, son, shalt take a
kindly message to the men of St. Pierre."

In a few moments the bright flame burst out on the rampart tower, like a
red tongue of fire telling forth a deadly message. And lo! I saw, as I
went, other tongues leap forth along the coast from tower and castle,
all singing out in direful glee the same word "War."

And once within the market-place I ran as I was bid to the Church of St.
Pierre, and great man I felt myself, as I pushed open the church door
and took the bell-rope in my hand. "Ding-dong!" rang out the alarm bell
from the tower hasty and quick, and ere twenty pulls at the rope, the
townsmen were all around, and I was drawn into the market-place, and
there at the head of the Rue des Vaches I sang out lustily--

"Good men, good citizens and sons of St Pierre, make fast your defences,
and man your walls this night; the fleet of Le Grand Sarrasin is
anchored in Moulin Huet."

CHAPTER V.

Of what befell the abbot's envoys to _Duke William_, our liege lord, and
more particularly _Brother Ralf_, and how we were hemmed in by our foes.

There was no attack of the pirates upon St. Pierre that night, and no
assault on our castles or cloister. And those who had taken refuge
within our walls, ladies and children for the most part, whose lords
were at the wars, spake as though they wo