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Their comrades crouched beneath the
bulwarks, with many a rough jest and many a scrap of criticism or
advice. "Higher, Wat, higher!" "Put thy body into it, Will!"
"Forget not the wind, Hal!" So ran the muttered chorus, while
high above it rose the sharp twanging of the strings, the hiss
of the shafts, and the short "Draw your arrow! Nick your arrow!
Shoot wholly together!" from the master-bowman.
And now both mangonels were at work from the galleys, but so
covered and protected that, save at the moment of discharge, no
glimpse could be caught of them. A huge brown rock from the
Genoese sang over their heads, and plunged sullenly into the
slope of a wave. Another from the Norman whizzed into the waist,
broke the back of a horse, and crashed its way through the side
of the vessel. Two others, flying together, tore a great gap in
the St. Christopher upon the sail, and brushed three of Sir
Oliver's men-at-arms from the forecastle. The master-shipman
looked at the knight with a troubled face.
"They keep their distance from us," said he.


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