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couraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honour of the White Ship.

Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the king heard faintly on the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock-was filling-going down!

Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat with some few nobles. 'Push off,' he whispered, and row to the land. It is not far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must die.'

But as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the prince heard the voice of his sister Marie, the Countess of Perche, calling for help. He never in his life had been so good as he was then. He cried in an agony, 'Row back at any risk! I cannot bear to

leave her!'

They rowed back. As the prince held out his arms to catch his sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in the same instant the White Ship went down.

Only two men floated. They both clung to the main-yard of the ship, which had broken from the mast, and now supported them.

One asked the other who he was. He said, 'I am a nobleman Godfrey by name, the son of Gilbert de L'Aigle. And you?' said he. ‘I am Berold, a poor butcher of Rouen,' was the answer. Then they said together, 'Lord be merciful to us both!' and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing sea on that unfortunate November night.

By and by another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be FitzStephen. 'Where is the prince?' said he. 'Gone! gone!' the two cried together. Neither he, nor his brother, nor his sister, nor the king's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, has risen above the water!' Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face, cried,' Woe! woe to me!' and sank to the bottom.

The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length the young noble said faintly, 'I am exhausted, and chilled with the cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend! God preserve you!' So he dropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd the

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poor butcher of Rouen alone was saved. the morning some fishermen saw him floating in his sheepskin coat, and got him into their boat, the sole relater of the dismal tale.

For three days no one dared to carry the intelligence to the king. At length they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that the White Ship was lost with all on board. The king fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, never afterwards, was seen to smile.

A SHIPWRECK.

(DE FOE.)

In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men early one morning cried out, 'Land!' and we had no sooner run out of the cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the world we were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her motion being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner that we expected we should all have perished immediately, and we

were even driven into our close quarters to shelter us from the very foam and spray of the sea.

It is not easy for anyone who has not been in the like condition, to describe or conceive the consternation* of men in such circumstances. We knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were driven; whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited: and as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many minutes without breaking in pieces, unless the winds, by a kind of miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking one upon another, and expecting death every moment, and every man acting accordingly, as preparing for another world, for there was little or nothing more for us to do in this; that which was our present comfort, and all the comfort we had, was that, contrary to our expectation, the ship did not break yet, and that the master said the wind began to abate.

Now, though we thought that the wind did a

*Consternation, fright.

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little abate, yet the ship, having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved by dashing against the ship's rudder, and, in the next place, she broke away, and either sunk or was driven off to sea, so there was no hope from her. We had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the sea was a doubtful thing. However, there was no room to debate, for we fancied the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was actually broken already.

In this distress, the mate of our vessel lays hold of the boat, and with the help of the rest of the men, they got her flung over the ship's side, and, getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in number, to God's mercy and the wild sea; for though the storm was abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadfully high upon the shore, and might well be called 'Den wild zee,' * as the Dutch

call the sea in a storm.

* The wild sea.

C

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