Still, that is in the future. My
first object in coming to England was to see how my daughter was faring,
and to enjoy a period of rest and quiet while my wound was healing, which
it has begun to do since I came here. I doubted on my journey, which has
been wholly performed in a litter, whether I should arrive here alive."
"And now, father," Katarina said, "let us hear what Sir Guy has been doing
since he left; we have been all full of impatience since the news came
four days ago that the Duke of Bedford had destroyed a great fleet of
French, Spanish, and Genoese ships."
"Guy has had his share of fighting, at any rate," Lord Eustace said, as he
entered the room while the girl was speaking, "for fifteen of our men have
fallen; and, as Long Tom tells me, they had hot work of it, and gained
much credit by capturing single-handed a great French ship."
"Yes, we were fortunate," Guy said, "in falling across the ship of the
French admiral, Count de Valles. Our men all fought stoutly, and the
archers having cleared the way for us and slain many of their crew, we
captured them, and I hold the count and five French knights to ransom."
"That will fill your purse rarely, Guy. But let us hear more of this
fighting. De Valles's ship must have been a great one, and if you took it
with but your own sixty men it must have been a brilliant action."
Guy then gave a full account of the fight, and of the subsequent capture
of one of the Spanish carracks with the aid of another English ship.
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