Caryl Carne cared not a jot about that. He was anything but a
philanthropist; his weaknesses, if he had any, were not dispersive, but
thoroughly concentric. He gathered his long cloak round his body,
and went to the highest spot within his reach, about a mile from the
watch-tower at Cape Grisnez, and thence he had a fine view of the vast
invasive fleet and the vaster host behind it.
An Englishman who loved his Country would have turned sick at heart and
faint of spirit at the sight before him. The foe was gathered together
there to eat us up on every side, to get us into his net and rend us,
to tear us asunder as a lamb is torn when its mother has dropped it in
flight from the wolves. For forty square miles there was not an acre
without a score of tents upon it, or else of huts thrown up with slabs
of wood to keep the powder dry, and the steel and iron bright and sharp
to go into the vitals of England. Mighty docks had been scooped out by
warlike hands, and shone with ships crowded with guns and alive with
men. And all along the shore for leagues, wherever any shelter lay, and
great batteries protected them, hundreds of other ships tore at their
moorings, to dash across the smooth narrow line, and blacken with fire
and redden with blood the white cliffs of the land they loathed.
And what was there to stop them? The steam of the multitude rose in
the air, and the clang of armour filled it. Numbers irresistible, and
relentless power urged them.
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