"The Saracen does well to call you English dogs," shouted the jongleur scornfully. "Dogs you would be to give up your own countrymen to the Paynim hounds! See you this torch? With it--and what I have by me--I could kindle your ship in flames at one stroke. I give you a new choice: fight off the corsairs or else prepare to perish like rats. I swear I will put this torch to the cog, an you refuse to stand by us." A new chorus of protests went up at this threat. Messer Nicholas fell upon his knees, hands raised imploringly. "Spare my beautiful ship, fair sir," he begged. "Bethink you, is it not more Christian to give up your own few lives and save ours, than to drag us all down to death together?" "You fools!" snapped Matteo. "Do you believe the Saracens would keep the bargain, if you made it? They would come aboard, and once aboard they would massacre all at will. Stand to your arms, and fight like men. We will aid you, an you do as I say. We shall beat the corsairs yet." Hugh seized the moment for definite action. "Shoot me that swart fellow on the galley's stern-castle," he whispered to Ralph. "Quick, man, before they suspect!" Ralph notched his arrow, drew the bow-string to his shoulder and loosed. But the arrow slipped over Messer Bartolommeo's shoulder and sank to the feathers in the breast of a man behind him. A yell of anger rose from the galley. Her commander stepped back from his exposed position, and a cloud of arrows and cross-bow bolts tore through the cog's sails or spatted into her planking. One of the sailors was pierced in the throat and fell choking. "A sad miss, Ralph," rebuked his master. "Ay, that it was," the giant agreed shamefacedly. "But my muscles are that flabby I am not myself. Give me time, Messer Hugh." He drew again, and the arrow found its mark in the crowded mass on the galley's stern-castle. Encouraged by his example and enraged by the discharges against themselves, the archers on the cog's fore-castle also loosed a feeble flight of arrows that took toll in the galley's runway between the rowing-benches. There was no longer any doubt of the galley's intentions. Urged on by her scores of rowers, she surged against the cog's hull, her starboard oars allowed to hang loose as she jammed alongside. Her archers shot fast and thick; her boarding-parties hung poised on rails. The war-cries of the East came shrill and challenging from the throats of her crew. With a shock the two craft drove together, and the advance-guard of the Paynims leaped to the cog's deck. Hugh sprang at them, sword in hand, shield on arm, shouting his war-cry: "A Chesby! St. James!"