, that you may have the handling
of it. You also, my dear son, shall have a ship, that evermore honor may
be thine."

"I thank you, my fair and sweet father," said the Prince, with joy
flushing his handsome boyish face.

"The leading ship shall be mine. But you shall have one, Walter Manny,
and you, Stafford, and you, Arundel, and you, Audley, and you, Sir
Thomas Holland, and you, Brocas, and you, Berkeley, and you, Reginald.
The rest shall be awarded at Winchelsea, whither we sail to-morrow. Nay,
John, why do you pluck so at my sleeve?"

Chandos was leaning forward, with an anxious face. "Surely, my honored
lord, I have not served you so long and so faithfully that you should
forget me now. Is there then no ship for me?"

The King smiled, but shook his head. "Nay, John, have I not given you
two hundred archers and a hundred men-at-arms to take with you into
Brittany? I trust that your ships will be lying in Saint Malo Bay ere
the Spaniards are abreast of Winchelsea. What more would you have, old
war-dog? Wouldst be in two battles at once?"

"I would be at your side, my liege, when the lion banner is in the wind
once more. I have ever been there. Why should you cast me now? I ask
little, dear lord--a galley, a balinger, even a pinnace, so that I may
only be there."

"Nay, John, you shall come. I cannot find it in my heart to say you
nay. I will find you place in my own ship, that you may indeed be by my
side."

Chandos stooped and kissed the King's hand. "My Squire?" he asked.

The King's brows knotted into a frown. "Nay, let him go to Brittany with
the others," said he harshly. "I wonder, John, that you should bring
back to my memory this youth whose pertness is too fresh that I should
forget it. But some one must go to Brittany in your stead, for the
matter presses and our people are hard put to it to hold their own." He
cast his eyes over the assembly, and they rested upon the stern features
of Sir Robert Knolles.

"Sir Robert," he said, "though you are young in years you are already
old in war, and I have heard that you are as prudent in council as you
are valiant in the field. To you I commit the charge of this venture to
Brittany in place of Sir John Chandos, who will follow thither when our
work has been done upon the waters. Three ships lie in Calais port and
three hundred men are ready to your hand. Sir John will tell you what
our mind is in the matter. And now, my friends and good comrades, you
wil