Round the corner of the mole a great dark boat had dashed into view, ringed round with foam from her flying prow, and from the ten pairs of oars which swung from either side of her.  A dainty white ensign drooped over her stern, and in her bows the sun’s light was caught by a heavy brass carronade.  She was packed with men, and the gleam which twinkled every now and again from amongst them told that they were armed to the teeth.  The captain brought his glass to bear upon them and whistled.  Then he glanced up at the clouds once more.

“Thirty men,” said he, “and they go three paces to our two.  You, sir, take your blue coat off this deck or you’ll bring trouble upon us.  The Lord will look after His own if they’ll only keep from foolishness.  Get these hatches off, Tomlinson.  So!  Where’s Jim Sturt and Hiram Jefferson?  Let them stand by to clap them on again when I whistle.  Starboard!  Starboard!  Keep her as full as she’ll draw.  Now, Amos, and you, Tomlinson, come here until I have a word with you.”

The three stood in consultation upon the poop, glancing back at their pursuers.  There could be no doubt that the wind was freshening; it blew briskly in their faces as they looked back, but it was not steady yet, and the boat was rapidly overhauling them.  Already they could see the faces of the marines who sat in the stern, and the gleam of the lighted linstock which the gunner held in his hand.

“Hola!” cried an officer in excellent English.  “Lay her to or we fire”

“Who are you, and what do you want?” shouted Ephraim Savage, in a voice that might have been heard from the bank.

“We come in the king’s name, and we want a party of Huguenots from Paris who came on board of your vessel at Rouen.”

“Brace back the foreyard and lay her to,” shouted the captain.  “Drop a ladder over the side there and look smart!  So!  Now we are ready for them.”

The yard was swung round and the vessel lay quietly rising and falling on the waves.  The boat dashed alongside, her brass cannon trained upon the brigantine, and her squad of marines with their fingers upon their triggers ready to open fire.  They grinned and shrugged their shoulders when they saw that their sole opponents were three unarmed men upon the poop.  The officer, a young active fellow with a bristling moustache, like the whiskers of a cat, was on deck in an instant with his drawn sword in his hand.

“Come up, two of you!” he cried.  “You stand here at the head of the ladder, sergeant.  Throw up a rope and you can fix it to this stanchion.  Keep awake down there and be all ready to fire!  You come with me, Corporal Lemoine.  Who is captain of this ship?”

“I am, sir,” said Ephraim Savage submissively.

“You have three Huguenots aboard?”

“Tut! tut!  Huguenots, are they?  I thought they were very anxious to get away, but as long as they paid their passage it was no business of mine.  An old man, his daughter, and a young fellow about your age in some sort of livery.”