“I am right glad to be remembered in the good brothers’ prayers,” said Stephen, quietly.
“Well, it may be as you say. Those I have known—I would not have given a base pollard for the pardon-mongers’ prayers; but there are false loons in every craft.”
They were silent again, for their voices were pretty well stormed down, and the sea broke so fiercely over the vessel that two or three of the men had to be constantly baling it out. Still she held her way gallantly. The shipmen of that day were not without an imperfect form of compass, in which the needle was laid upon a couple of straws in a vessel of water, but these contrivances were apt to get out of gear at the very time when they were most needed, such as a storm like that now raging round the Queen Maud, and hardy sailors trusted rather to their own skill and courage or their knowledge of the coast. Nothing was, therefore, so dangerous as fog or mist.
To Hugh, however, what seemed most terrible was the wild driving storm and the rush of the waves against the boat, which shivered under each stroke as if she had received a mortal blow. Agrippa, wet and miserable, cowered in his master’s arms, and turned up a piteous little wrinkled face full of inquiry. Hugh crept closer to his father, and at last put his question—
“Shall we be drowned?”
Stephen turned and caught his hands in his.
“Nay, my little lad, I know not, I know not! I should not have brought thee!”
The boy looked in his face gallantly.
“I am not frightened,” he said, “only I wish poor Agrippa were safe.”
They were silent again after this. Andrew was evidently uneasy; he shouted orders to the sailors, and strained his eyes through the baffling mist as if he feared what might be in advance of him. His hope, and it was a feeble one, consisted in the chance that he might strike the estuary of the Teign, avoiding the bar, and, as the tide would be full, getting into the shelter of the river. He was one of the most skilful of the sailors of the west, knowing all the currents and dangers thoroughly; but navigation was then in its infancy, and vessels were clumsy, lumbering things, suited but to calm weather, when they would coast along from creek to creek. The bolder craft chiefly belonged to pirates. Still, England was beginning to awake to her sea powers, and Henry the Third had taken the title of Ruler of the Seas in honour of a victory gained over the Spaniards. Andrew himself had been down as far as Spain, and was held to be over-daring; moreover, he wanted to hasten his voyage and get back to his wife and to Moll, otherwise he would hardly have put out that morning in the teeth of a possible gale.