"Well, Longpole," said Sir Osborne, "I suppose that we must look upon ourselves as caught at last."
"Would your worship like us to stand to our arms?" demanded the yeoman. "We could make this cabin good a long while in case of necessity."
"By no means," replied the knight. "I will on no account resist the king's will. Besides, it would be spilling good blood to little purpose; for we must yield at last."
"As your lordship pleases," answered the custrel; "but knowing how fond you are of a good downright blow of estoc at a fair gentleman's head, I thought you might like to take advantage of the present occasion, which may be your last for some time."
"Perhaps it may be a mistake still," answered the knight, "and pass away like the search for the Bibles when we were concealed in the warehouse. However, we shall soon see: at all events, till it comes I shall take no heed about it;" and casting himself into a seat, with a bitter smile, as if wearied out with Fortune's caprices, and resolved to struggle no longer for her favour, he gazed forth from the little stern window upon the wide expanse of water that rolled away towards the horizon. The aperture of this window, not being more than six inches either in height or width, and cut through the thick timbers of the Dutch vessel for considerably more than a foot in depth, was in fact not much better than a telescope without a glass, so that the knight's view was not a little circumscribed in respect to all the nearer objects, and he was only able to see, as the ship pitched, the glassy green waves, mingled with white foam, rushing tumultuously from under her stern as she now scudded before the wind, leaving a long, glistening, frothy track behind, to mark where she had made her path through the midst of the broad sea. As he looked farther out, however, the prospect widened; and at the extreme verge, where the sea and the sky, almost one in unity of hue, showed still a faint line of light to mark their boundary, he could perceive, rising up as it were from the bosom of the deep, the light tracery of masts and rigging belonging to far distant vessels, whose hulls were still concealed by the convexity of the waters. Nearer, but yet within the range that the narrowness of the window allowed his sight, appeared the vessel that had dropped down the river just before them, and the English ship-of-war, which, crowding all sail before the wind, seemed in full chase, not of their companion, but of themselves; for the other, in obedience to the signal, had hauled her wind and lay-to.
Sir Osborne now watched to ascertain whether the man-of-war gained upon them, but an instant's observation put an end to all doubt. She evidently came nearer and nearer, and soon approached so close as scarcely to be within range of his view, being lost and seen alternately at every motion of the ship. At length, as the vessel pitched, she disappeared for a moment, then came in sight again; a quick flash glanced along her bow, and the moment after, when she was no longer visible to his eye, the sullen report of a cannon came upon the wind.
By a sudden change in the motion of the vessel, together with various cries upon the deck, the knight now concluded that the Dutchman had at length obeyed this peremptory signal and lay-to, which was in fact the case; for passing over to the window on the other side, he again got a view of the English ship, which sailed majestically up, and then, when within a few hundred yards, put out and manned a boat, which rowed off towards them. Sir Osborne had not long an opportunity of observing the boat in her approach, as she soon passed out of the small space which he could see; but in a few minutes after, the voice of some one, raised to its very highest pitch, made itself heard from a distance, hardly near enough for the knight to distinguish the words, though he every now and then caught enough to perceive that the whole consisted of a volley of curses discharged at Master Skippenhausen for not having obeyed the signal.
The Dutchman replied, in a tone of angry surliness, that he had not seen their signal; and in a minute or two more, a harsh grating rush against the vessel told that the boat was alongside.
"I will teach you, you Dutch son of a dog-fish, not to lie-to when one of the king's ships makes the signal," cried a loud voice by the side. "Have you any passengers on board?"
"Yes, five or six," answered the Dutchman.