the cool times of the night. For the Mediterranean is always so
luminous of itself that the merest ripple of air is sufficient to stir
the water and show the way. Moreover, in times of peace and on that safe
coast galleys were rarely moored save in calm weather.

"It happened thus"--as the sentinel passed Francis Agnew took up the
tale--"after the Sorbonne rascals had plashed the cool water over me, I
sat up suddenly and looked about me for a sword. But, there being none,
I was in their power. For ten days they kept me in hold in a secret
place among firewood, deep underground, without any loophole whatever.
Twice a day they brought me food, and by the light of a candle they
dressed my wounds--one of them being expert at that business, having had
practice in the hospitals. Then when I was recovered they gave me a
candle which burned two hours only. And with it also a pile of brushwood
to cut up into small pieces. This was the pleasantest part of the day to
me. But they always took away the axe afterwards, bidding me push it
through beneath the door, so that whoever came with my next meal might
see it. Else I would get no dinner. For they feared lest I might brain
one of them as he came in, and then make a rush for the passage-way. But
I knew that the doors were shut behind, so that there was no chance. And
besides, being a Christian man, I was covenanted to fight only when I
could do so without sin, and with some chance of continuing the life so
marvellously preserved to me!

"Then this Flamand, the chief of the servitors of the Sorbonne--Holtz
was his name, a huge-handed animal of monkey breed, but with cunning
under that sloping skull of his--made interest to find me a place in one
of the slow waggons which carry the king's artillery to the port of
Calais, where the new forts are. And me he laid, tied like a parcel
between two brass guns for sieging, strapped down and gagged, feeding me
at nights when the convoy halted. Also he paid the chief waggoner so
much. For he meant to sell me for a slave to the Duke of Parma, who at
that time was gathering a great fleet of galleys to destroy England. I
had heard them arguing the matter somewhat thus:

"'Better kill him and be done,' said one; 'thus we are sure of a hundred
shields for him from the lads of the beef barrel.' (So they spoke of the
young surgeons of the Sorbonne.)

"However, the Flamand (a vantard and a bully, but very cunning) offered
to fight any man there, o