the oars,
while the prince and the nobles, with song and laughter, made the quiet
night to resound. So they went for two hours. Then the prince's sister
Adela, Countess of Perche, stepped up to him timidly, and said--

"My brother, what sound is that, like the roar of distant thunder?"

"It is nothing, my sister; go down again and sleep."

"It sounds like the breaking of wares on the rocks."

"How can that be, when the sea is scarcely ruffled?"

"I fear me we run a risk, sailing so close to shore," said the maiden.
"I myself heard Fitz-Stephen say that the currents ran strong along this
coast of Normandy."

"Be easy, sister; no danger can befall a night like this."

Louder and louder rose the shouting and the revelry. The rowers sang as
they rowed. And the knights and nobles, who made merry always when the
prince made merry, sang too.

But all the while the maiden, as she lay, heard the roar of the breakers
sound nearer and nearer, and was ill at ease, fearing some evil.

"Now, my merry men," shouted the prince, "row hard, for the night is
getting on!"

Fitz-Stephen at that instant uttered an exclamation of horror, and
wildly flung round his helm. There was a sudden roar ahead, and a gleam
of long lines of broken water.

"Pull for your lives!" shouted the captain, "or we shall be on the Ras
de Catte!"

It was too late. The treacherous current swept them on to the reef.
There was a sudden tossing of the "White Ship," then a great shock as
she struck--then a cry of terror from two hundred lips.

King Henry in his vessel, three leagues away, heard that sudden awful
cry across the still waters. But little guessed he that it was the
death cry of his own beloved children.

Every man on board the "White Ship" was startled by that shock into
instant sobriety. The brave Fitz-Stephen left the now useless helm, and
rushed to where the prince, entrusted to his care, was clinging to the
mast of the fast-filling vessel. With his own hand he cut loose the
small boat which she carried, and by sheer force placed William in it,
and a few of the crew.

"Row for the shore!" he shouted to the men, waving his hand; "lose not
a moment!"

William, stupefied and bewildered, sat motionless and speechless.

The men had already dipped their oars, and the frail boat was already
clear of the sinking vessel, when there fell on the prince's ear the
piercing shriek of a girl.

Looking behind him, he saw his poor sister