"There, hold your howling!" cried the officer of the boat. "Nobody is going to take anything, unless it be the papers."
"I have no papers," cried Barecolt, in broken English, "except that brown paper round about my crowns; give me the silver, and take the brown paper if you like."
"There, monsieur! take your crowns, paper, and all," cried the officer, handing them to him. "We are no robbers in this country. Did you find any one below?" he continued, addressing the man who brought the portmanteau.
"Nobody but another poor French lubber, lying upon the floor as sick as a cat," answered the sailor. "I shook him by the shoulder, and told him to come up, but I believe he would let me throw him overboard sooner than budge."
"Ay, let him stay, let him stay!" answered the officer. "I will go down and see him in a minute. What's in that leather case?"
"Nothing but my clothes, writing materials, and a trifle of money," replied Colonel Ashburnham; "and if you wish to examine it, I will beg you to use the key rather than that marlin-spike, for I don't know whether the smiths are good in Hull. Here is the key."
While all these operations were going on, the boat's crew had been busily engaged in navigating the ship towards Hull; and the vessel to which she had struck, seeing the prize secure, made sail to assist in the chase of the "Good Hope."
Although the wind was not very favourable, it was sufficiently so to bring them into the port of Hull just as night was beginning to fall, and in a few minutes the deck was crowded with officers of the garrison, and a party of the train-bands of the city--the only force, indeed, which the parliament had prepared for its defence, the cavalry which had arrived a short time before having been marched out to other quarters almost as soon as they entered. Colonel Ashburnham, whose name was soon noised about, became an object of general attention, and much lees notice was taken of good Captain Barecolt than that worthy gentleman imagined he deserved. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection that the rabble of Hull neither knew him nor the many wonderful achievements which he had performed, and that it was as well occasionally to divest one's self of a portion of one's glory, in order to escape from too close observation.
Lord Beverley passed with as little attention; and an officer who was sent to state the case to the governor reported, first, that the famous Colonel Ashburnham was amongst the prisoners, but the other two were Frenchmen, apparently of no great importance, and one of them so sick that he could scarcely stand.
"Bring Colonel Ashburnham before me immediately," replied the governor, "and the Frenchman who is well. He can give us tidings of himself, and of his companion, too, most likely. Put the other one in the block-house we strengthened yesterday, till he is well enough to speak for himself. Let him have whatever is necessary for him, and mind to keep a sure guard over him."