"We shall die on shore, but not dry-shod," said Martin. "Do any of you
knights of the tar-brush know whether we are going to be drowned in
Christian waters? I should like a mass or two for my soul, and shall die
the happier within sight of a church-tower."
"One Dune is as like another as one pea; we may be anywhere between the
Texel and Cap Gris Nez, but I think nearer the latter than the former."
"So much the worse for us," said another. "If we had gone ashore among
those Frieslanders, we should have been only knocked on the head outright;
but if we fall among the Frenchmen, we shall be clapt in prison strong,
and tortured till we find ransom."
"I don't see that," said Martin. "We can all be drowned if we like, I
suppose?"
"Drowned we need not be, if we be men," said the old sailing-master to
Hereward. "The tide is full high, and that gives us one chance for our
lives. Keep her head straight, and row like fiends when we are once in the
surf, and then beach her up high and dry, and take what befalls after."
And what was likely to befall was ugly enough. Then, as centuries after,
all wrecks and wrecked men were public prey; shipwrecked mariners were
liable to be sold as slaves; and the petty counts of the French and
Flemish shores were but too likely to extract ransom by prison and
torture, as Guy Earl of Penthieu would have done (so at least William Duke
of Normandy hinted) by Harold Godwinsson, had not William, for his own
politic ends, begged the release of the shipwrecked earl.
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