"Fitz-Stephen!" cried the prince, flushed with wine himself, and in a tone of excitement--"Fitz-Stephen, how far say you is my father's ship before ours?" "Five leagues," replied the sailor, "or more." "Then may we not overtake him before the night is past? You know this coast; can we not steer closer in, and so gain on them?" "My lord," said Fitz-Stephen, "there are many sunken rocks on this coast, which the mariner always avoids by keeping out to sea." "Talk not to me of rocks on a night when the sea is calm and the wind so gentle it scarce fills the sails, and the moon so clear we can see a mile before us! What say you, my men? Shall we overtake the king? 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 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.