The seamen shrank from this terrible
silent creature and huddled in the stern, all the fight gone out
of them.
Again he raised his mace and was advancing on the helpless crowd
where the brave were encumbered and hampered by the weaklings,
when Nigel shook himself clear and bounded forward into the open,
his sword in his hand and a smile of welcome upon his lips.
The sun had set, and one long mauve gash across the western
Channel was closing swiftly into the dull grays of early night.
Above, a few stars began to faintly twinkle; yet the twilight was
still bright enough for an observer to see every detail of the
scene: the Marie Rose, dipping and rising on the long rollers
astern; the broad French boat with its white deck blotched with
blood and littered with bodies; the group of men in the stern,
some trying to advance and some seeking to escape--all a
confused, disorderly, struggling rabble.
Then betwixt them and the mast the two figures: the armed shining
man of metal, with hand upraised, watchful, silent, motionless,
and Nigel, bareheaded and crouching, with quick foot, eager eyes
and fearless happy face, moving this way and that, in and out, his
sword flashing like a gleam of light as he sought at all points
for some opening in the brazen shell before him.
It was clear to the man in armor that if he could but pen his
antagonist in a corner he would beat him down without fail.
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