"Ah, fair sir, that is a different matter. I make the distance betwixt Hastings port and Rouen quay a matter of fifty leagues or maybe sixty, depending, as I said, on the wind and the course we take. It hath been sailed by the Alice in three days, and I venture to predict she will do it again."
"So, good shipman, you are not above prophecy, after all?" jeered Matteo.
"In my own terms—no; that is true," acknowledged Messer Nicholas composedly.
And he took advantage of the opportunity unwisely afforded by Matteo, to launch into a lengthy disquisition on the mystery of navigation—to which craft, he asserted, St. Peter had belonged, with conspicuous success, as well as divers other distinguished and saintly characters. Matteo and Hugh were forced to flee to escape the deluge of words. In the waist of the ship they sought out Ralph to inquire the condition of their horses. But they were more speedily interested in Ralph himself. He was leaning over the bulwarks amidships, his head hanging on his hand, and a pasty green look upon his face. At sight of them he gasped and sank down on the deck.
"Oh, Messer Hugh," he moaned. "St. Cuthbert be my witness, y'have brought me to my death! Only this morning I was mine old self. Now, I am ridden with the plague or some such parlous complaint I make no doubt. My end is on me. Would there be a priest on board, do you think?"
Hugh was much concerned by this plaint, but Matteo laughed and clapped Ralph on the shoulder.
"An you suffer never any illness more dangerous than this you must burn an hundred candles at your name-altar," he said. "Take heart, man. 'Tis naught but the sickness of the sea. You have been below in the stenches of the hold, and that, with the motion of the ship, hath disturbed the comfort of your stomach. Let the clean breeze fan your face, and you will be whole anon."
"Mayhap, mayhap," answered Ralph, "but I am mortal weak in my body for a hale man, Messer Matteo. Could you not be having the shipman turn about and leave me behind? I have no bowels for this kind of venturing."
"There will be shame in your heart for those words in a few hours, Ralph," said Hugh sternly. "Do you come up to the poop with us and lie out there in the open. Perchance that chicken-heart of yours will win back the allegiance of your belly."
Groaning and protesting, Ralph suffered himself to be led up the steep ladder-stairs to the narrow space in front of the stern-castle, where the rudder-post came up through the deck-planking. Here he was deposited in a recumbent position, and very shortly, lulled by the rocking of the cog and the creak of the rigging, he dropped off to sleep—to the great relief of Hugh, who was half-inclined to believe him really smitten by one of the little-known epidemic diseases which ravaged the mediæval world.