One, a tall wall-sided ship, was striving to keep at bay a long, low-lying galley, from which showers of arrows, quarrels, stones, and spears were being hurled by the crowd of men who thronged her low fo'c'sle and towering poop.
"What are we to do, good Master Gripwell?" asked Simeon, the shipmaster, anxiously. "Yonder lies the ship Brothers of Lymington. I know her well. She is a stout merchantman, but slow; though, by St. Peter, the Grâce à Dieu could scarce gain a bow-shot length on her in an hour. The galley, if mine eyes do not deceive me, belongs to the Republic of Genoa, and scant mercy shall we receive at her hands. What are we to do?"
"Do?" exclaimed Gripwell in high disdain. "Why, Simeon, trick her. If we flee we are lost, since she can sail two yards to our one. Art willing to leave this matter in my hands?"
"Ay, good Arnold," replied the shipmaster nervously.
"Then, do you steer straight for yonder ships. Ho there, Wat! Bring forth every spear and every steel cap that is in the ship. Thomas of Gosport, do you wind your horn and blow a rousing blast. The rest of you, shipmen and archers all, don steel caps and stand fast in the waist till I give ye word."
So saying, Gripwell left the deck and went below. Meanwhile Geoffrey and his two comrades were struggling into their plates and steel casques, knowing that there was hot work afoot, yet wondering what the man-at-arms was about.
Presently Gripwell re-appeared, bearing six large shields of painted canvas, emblazoned with the arms of the principal knights of Hampshire.
"Now ye be each two knights," he shouted light-heartedly. "Sixteen years ago come Martinmas these devices hung in the great hall of Warblington when Sir Oliver was wed. Ever since that day have I kept them. Whenever I journey by water they go with me. Now, Sir Geoffrey, take thy place on the poop with Sir Oswald; Sir Richard, the waist is under thy charge. I am for the fo'c'sle."
So saying the man-at-arms proceeded to hang the shields over the ship's sides, according to the custom when knights adventured themselves on the high seas. Every man had donned a steel cap, and was grasping two and sometimes three lances, so that the rays of the rising sun glittered upon a small forest of steel.
"Turn her aside, I pray thee, Simeon, and let yonder rogues see our knights' shields," ordered Gripwell, and obediently the master-shipman thrust the helm hard over so that the Grâce à Dieu exposed the whole of her broadside to the two antagonists.