Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-22
THE WHITE COMPANY
BY A. CONAN DOYLE.


threw up their hands and fell PROSTATE
upon the deck. One had already been slain
by bolt, so that there were but four upon
their feet.
That should give them heart said Sir
Nigel, cycling the galleys, which crept along
on either side with slow. measured swing
of their great oars, the water swiriing and
foaming under their sharp stems.
They still hold aloof!' cried HaWtayne.
Then down with two more! shouted
their leader THAT will do. Ma fol! but
they come TO our lure like chicks to the
fowler To your arms, men! The pennen
behind me, and the squires round the pen
non Stand fast with the anchors in the
waist and be ready for a cast. Now blow
out the trumpets, and may Gods benson
be with the honest men!
As he spoke a roar of voices and a roll OF
drums came from either galley, and the
water was dashed into spray by the hurried
beat of a hundred oars. Down they swoop-
ed, one on the right, one on the LETT, the
sides and shrouds black with men and
bristling with weapons In heavy clusters
they hung upon the forecasue all ready
for Spring-faces white, faces brown, faces
yellow and faces black, fair NorsS men
swarthy Italians, fierce rovers from the
Levant and fiery Moors from the Barbary
states, of all hues and countries, and
marked solely by the common stamp of
wild-beast ferocity. Rasping up on either
side, with oars trailing to save them from
swapping, they poured in a living torrent
defenseless merchantmen.
But wilder yet was the cry, and shriller
still the scream, when there rose up from
the shadow of those silent bulwarks the
long lines of the English bowmen, and the
arrows whizzed in a deadly sleet among the
unprepared masses upon the pirate decks.
From the higher sides of the cog the bow
men could shoot straight down, at a range
which was short as to enable a cloth
yard shaft to pierce through the mail-coats
or to transfix shield though it were
inch thick of toughened wood. One mo-
ment Alleyne saw the galieys poop crowd
ed with rushing figures, waving arms, ex-
ultant faces; the next it was a blood
smeared shambles, with bodies piled three
deep upon one another, the living covering
behind the dead to shelter themselves from
that sudden storm-blast OF death On either
side the seamen whom Sir Nigel had chosen
for the purpose had cast their anchors over
the side of the galleys,, so that the three
vessels. locked in an iron grip lu.chad
heavily forward unon the swell.
And now set in a fell and fierce fight one
of a thousand of which no chronicler has
spoken and no poet sung. Through all the
centuries and over all those southern waters
nameless men have fought IN nameless
places, their sole monuments a protected
coast and an unravaged countryside
Fore and aft the archers had cleared the
galleys decks, but from either side the
royefs had poured down into the waist.
where the seamen and bowmen were pushed
back, and SO mingled with their foes that
it was impossible for their comrades above
to draw string to help them. 1t was a wild
chaos, where ak and sword rose and fell
while Englishman, Norman and Italian
staggered and reeled ON a deck which was
numbered with bodies and slippery with
blood The clang of blows, the cries of the
stricken, the short, deep shout of the island
ers and the fierce whoops of the rovers
rose together in a deafening tumult, while
the breath of the painting men went up In
the wintry air like the smoke from a fur
mace. The giant Tete-noire, towering above
his fellows and clad from head to foot in
plate OF proof. led on his boarders, waving