them showed that they were preparing to resist. Cock Badding
began to muster his own forces.

He had a crew of seven rough, hardy mariners, who had been at his back
in many a skirmish. They were armed with short swords, but Cock Badding
carried a weapon peculiar to himself, a twenty-pound blacksmith's
hammer, the memory of which, as "Badding's cracker," still lingers
in the Cinque Ports. Then there were the eager Nigel, the melancholy
Aylward, Black Simon who was a tried swordsman, and three archers,
Baddlesmere, Masters and Dicon of Rye, all veterans of the French War.
The numbers in the two vessels might be about equal; but Badding as
he glanced at the bold harsh faces which looked to him for orders had
little fear for the result.

Glancing round, however, he saw something which was more dangerous to
his plans than the resistance of the enemy. The wind, which had become
more fitful and feebler, now fell suddenly away, until the sails hung
limp and straight above them. A belt of calm lay along the horizon, and
the waves around had smoothed down into a long oily swell on which
the two little vessels rose and fell. The great boom of the Marie Rose
rattled and jarred with every lurch, and the high thin prow pointed
skyward one instant and seaward the next in a way that drew fresh groans
from the unhappy Aylward. In vain Cock Badding pulled on his sheets and
tried hard to husband every little wandering gust which ruffled for an
instant the sleek rollers. The French master was as adroit a sailor, and
his boom swung round also as each breath of wind came up from astern.

At last even these fitful puffs died finally away, and a cloudless
sky overhung a glassy sea. The sun was almost upon the horizon behind
Dungeness Point, and the whole western heaven was bright with the glory
of the sunset, which blended sea and sky in one blaze of ruddy light.
Like rollers of molten gold, the long swell heaved up Channel from the
great ocean beyond. In the midst of the immense beauty and peace of
nature the two little dark specks with the white sail and the purple
rose and fell, so small upon the vast shining bosom of the waters, and
yet so charged with all the unrest and the passion of life.

The experienced eye of the seaman told him that it was hopeless to
expect a breeze before nightfall. He looked across at the Frenchman,
which lay less than a quarter of a mile ahead, and shook his gnarled
fist at the line of heads which could be s