The rowers plied their oars with all the vigour and activity which the necessity of the case required, but it was in vain. Ere they had reached the ship's side, the master had quietly hauled down his colours as sign of surrender.
"This is infamous!" cried Ashburnham. "The cowardly vagabond! What's to become of us now?"
"Faith, we must take our chance," replied the earl; "perhaps we may prevail upon him yet to make sail. At all events, I must destroy some letters I have on board; and perchance I may escape unknown, even if I be taken into Hull; for I do not think that Hotham and I ever met more than once."
"I have no such luck," answered Ashburnham, "he knows me as an old enemy--a thing not so easily forgotten as an old friend. But I will not spoil your fortune, Beverley. Remember, we never met before, mon colonel, and if this good gentleman would take my advice," he added, turning to Barecolt, "he would follow the same plan, which is the only way for safety, depend upon it."
"Oh! I will be strangely ignorant," replied Barecolt; "but I thought I heard you talk of papers in those bags, sir. The sea is a more quiet place at the bottom than at the top."
"Right! right!" cried Colonel Ashburnham. "Hand me that grappling-iron, my man," he continued, speaking to one of the sailors.
The man obeyed; and fastening one of the leathern bags he had brought with him to the hook of the iron, Colonel Ashburnham pitched them both into the sea together, just as the boat ran alongside the cutter.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
"In the name of fury, you scoundrel!" exclaimed Colonel Ashburnham, addressing the captain of the cutter, as soon as they reached the deck, "what made you strike and reef the sails?"
"Because I couldn't help it," replied the man. "They are to windward of us, and will be alongside of us in no time. If you come to that, what made that gentleman stay so long? and who the devil are you who come to give orders here?"