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Broad and ungainly, she floundered from wave to wave, dipping her
round bows deeply into the blue rollers, and sending the white
flakes of foam in a spatter over her decks. On her larboard
quarter lay the two dark galleys, which had already hoisted sail,
and were shooting out from Freshwater Bay in swift pursuit, their
double line of oars giving them a vantage which could not fail to
bring them up with any vessel which trusted to sails alone. High
and bluff the English cog; long, black and swift the pirate
galleys, like two fierce lean wolves which have seen a lordly
and unsuspecting stag walk past their forest lair.
"Shall we turn, my fair lord, or shall we carry on?" asked the
master-shipman, looking behind him with anxious eyes.
"Nay, we must carry on and play the part of the helpless
merchant."
"But your pennons? They will see that we have two knights with
us."
"Yet it would not be to a knight's honor or good name to lower
his pennon. Let them be, and they will think that we are a
wine-ship for Gascony, or that we bear the wool-bales of some
mercer of the Staple.


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