Presently Gripwell returned, accompanied by the Norman helmsman and his crew. The latter sat listlessly on their thwarts, while the man-at-arms beguiled the lads during the hours of waiting with stories of the past when the English armies overran the greater part of France.
Suddenly Gaston started to his feet; a low distant roar, like the rumble of summer thunder, caught his well-trained ear.
"Vite, vite, mes enfants!" he shouted. "La barre!"
Instantly the hitherto inactive rowers were transformed into alert and energetic seamen. The holding-ropes were cast off, the oars fell betwixt the thole-pins and the boat, driving her out towards the middle of the Seine. Yet, notwithstanding the men's efforts, the craft made no headway against the stream.
"Why thus?" asked Oswald. "The tide is still against us, and, moreover, our friends still tarry at the inn."
"Dost not hear the distant roar?" asked Gripwell. "'Tis what men in these parts call the Mascaret or La Barre, though to English ears 'bore' sounds more familiar."
Meanwhile all the other boats that were moored to the bank began to put off into midstream, their occupants joining in the warning cry.
Geoffrey looked down stream, and a strange and awe-inspiring sight met his gaze. Stretching from bank to bank came an enormous wave, eight or more feet in height. Its line was bent into the form of a crescent, the two shoreward extremities being in advance of the centre, and breaking furiously along the shore, to the accompaniment of an ever-increasing roar.
While the Englishmen were looking with considerable apprehension at the progress of the bore, fully expecting that their craft would be engulfed in the wall of water, a shout from the bank caused them to glance shore wards.
Master Roche and his three boon companions had left the inn and were standing on the quay, unable to understand the cause of their fellow travellers' desertion.