The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and sang.

The Prince encouraged 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 land.

It is not far, and the sea is smooth.