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."

"In uniform, sir! The uniform of the king's guard. Those are the folk I
have come for."

"And you wish to take them back?"

"Most certainly."

"Poor folk! I am so