"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."