Fitz-Stephen," he added, "thou earnest a king's son to-night. If thou and thy men can set me on English ground before my father, I will never sail more, as long as I live, save in thy ship."

The sailor yielded, and turned his helm nearer to the coast, and the crew, clamouring loudly with excitement, pulled wildly at the oars, while the prince and the n.o.bles, 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 sh.o.r.e," 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 n.o.bles, 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 sh.o.r.e!" 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 clinging to the deck of the doomed ship, and stretching a hand appealingly in the direction of his boat.

In an instant his senses returned to him.

"Put back, men!" he cried, frantically.

"It is certain death!" cried one of the crew.

"Must William the Atheling order a thing twice?" thundered the prince, in a tone so terrible, that the men immediately turned and made for the wreck.

"My sister!" shouted William, as they came under the spot where Adela clung; "throw yourself into my arms!"

She did so; but, alas! at the same moment, fifty more, in the desperation of terror, jumped too, and the little boat, with all that were in her, turned over, and was seen no more.

Then the waters poured over the "White Ship," and with a great plunge that gallant vessel went down.

With her went down all the souls she carried save three. One of these was the brave Fitz-Stephen. Rising to the surface, he saw the two others clinging to a spar. Eagerly he swam towards them.

"Is the prince saved?" he asked.

"We have seen nothing of him," replied they.

"Then woe is me!" exclaimed he, as he turned in the water and sank beneath it.

Of the other two, one only, a butcher, survived to carry the dreadful news to England.

For many days, Henry, impatient for his son's arrival, waited in ignorance of his sad fate.

Then went to him a little child, who, instructed what to say, told him in his own artless way the whole story; and King Henry the First, so they say, after he had heard it, was never seen to smile again.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

JOHN PLANTAGENET, THE BOY WHO BROKE HIS FATHER'S HEART.

A youth was pacing restlessly to and fro in a wood bordering on the old town of Tours, in France. He was scarcely twenty years of age, and of a forbidding countenance. Cruelty and cunning were stamped on his features, and as he strode aimlessly among the trees, muttering to himself, and striking often with his sheathed sword at the bushes and twigs in his path, he seemed to be the victim of an evil pa.s.sion, with nothing to make a man love him or desire his acquaintance.

His muttering not unfrequently rose to the pitch of talking aloud, when one might have heard sentences like these.

"Why should I longer delay? Am not I John, the son of Henry of England, a man? and shall I submit to be treated for ever as a child? Are my brothers, who have rebelled against their father, to have ah the spoil, and I, who have remained obedient, to go portionless and penniless?

What means my father's meeting here with the King of France, who has espoused the cause of Richard, my brother, in his rebellion, if it be not to yield to the traitor the kingdoms _I_ have earned by my obedience? But I will delay no longer. I have been obedient too long!

Henceforth this sword shall be my obedience!"

And as he spoke he unsheathed his weapon, and struck savagely at the graceful branch of a fir tree before him, and brought it down crashing at his feet. At the same instant there appeared coming towards him a man of middle age, clad like a soldier, who saluted respectfully the young prince.

"Whence come you, Ralph Leroche?" inquired John.

"From the meeting of the Kings of France and England."

"And what went forward there?" asked the prince, leading his companion in among the trees.

"I know only what I am told," said the knight, "for the meeting of your father and King Philip was secret."

"And what have you been told?" inquired John, impatiently, and with clouding brows.

"I have been told that the King of France demanded that your father should do him homage, and should acknowledge your brother Richard as King of England."

"And what said my father?" broke in John.