Their comrades crouched beneath the bulwarks, with many a rough jest and many a scrap of criticism or advice.

"Higher, Wat, higher!" "Put thy body into it, Will!" "Forget not the wind, Hal!" So ran the muttered chorus, while high above it rose the sharp twanging of the strings, the hiss of the shafts, and the short "Draw your arrow! Nick your arrow! Shoot wholly together!" from the master-bowman.
And now both mangonels were at work from the galleys, but so covered and protected that, save at the moment of discharge, no glimpse could be caught of them.

A huge brown rock from the Genoese sang over their heads, and plunged sullenly into the slope of a wave.

Another from the Norman whizzed into the waist, broke the back of a horse, and crashed its way through the side of the vessel.

Two others, flying together, tore a great gap in the St.Christopher upon the sail, and brushed three of Sir Oliver's men-at-arms from the forecastle.