Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/223

Rh a man from the poop could scarce touch the deck with a seven-foot spear. The cog lay lower in the water and the waves splashed freely over the weather bulwark.

'I fear that we can scarce bide upon this tack,' cried Hawtayne; 'and yet the other will drive us on the rocks.'

'Might we not haul down sail and wait for better times?' suggested Sir Nigel.

'Nay, we should drift upon the rocks. Thirty years have I been on the sea, and never yet in greater straits. Yet we are in the hands of the Saints.'

'Of whom,' cried Sir Oliver, 'I look more particularly to Saint James of Compostella, who hath already befriended us this day, and on whose feast I hereby vow that I shall eat a second carp, if he will but interpose a second time.'

The wrack had thickened to seaward, and the coast was but a blurred line. Two vague shadows in the offing showed where the galeasses rolled and tossed upon the great Atlantic rollers. Hawtayne looked wistfully in their direction. 'If they would but lie closer we might find safety, even should the cog founder. You will bear me out with good Master Witherton of Southampton that I have done all that a shipman might. It would be well that you should doff and greaves, Sir Nigel, for, by the black rood, it is like enough that we shall have to swim for it.'

'Nay,' said the little knight, 'it would be scarce fitting that a cavalier should throw off his harness for the fear of every puff of wind and puddle of water. I would rather that my Company should gather round me here on the poop, where we might abide together whatever God may be pleased to send. But, certes, Master Hawtayne, for all that my sight is none of the best, it is not the first time that I have seen that headland upon the left.'

The seaman shaded his eyes with his hand, and gazed earnestly through the haze and spray. Suddenly he threw up his arms, and shouted aloud in his joy.

Tis the Point of La Tremblade!' he cried. 'I had not thought that we were as far as Oléron. The Gironde lies