“Yes, all right,” said the gentleman addressed, “and all’s right. Here.”
He had thrust his hand into his breast when there was a shout and a cheer as the stout crew of the Kestrel, headed by the gunner and armed with pikes and capstan-bars, charged down upon them.
There was a shot or two. Hilary was knocked down by his own men as he had struggled up; the false lieutenant was driven headlong down the companion hatch, and in less than a minute Sir Henry Norland and his men were, with two exceptions, who lay stunned upon the deck, driven over the side, to get to their boat as best they could. Then as Hilary once more gained his feet the assailing boat was a quarter of a mile astern.
“The treacherous scoundrel!” cried Hilary. “Oh, my lads, my lads, you’ve saved the cutter. But tell me, did that fellow get away?”
“What! him as I hit down the hatchway for hysting your honour?” said Tom Tully. “He’s down below.”
Hilary and a couple of men ran to the hatchway, to find the false lieutenant lying below by the cabin door, with one arm broken, and his head so injured that he lay insensible, with the end of a packet of papers standing out of his breast.
Hilary seized them at once, and then, as a light broke in upon his breast, he ran to the locker, opened it and the despatch-box, and longed to open the papers he held.
But they were close in to the port, and, resolving to deliver the despatches, he left the false lieutenant well guarded, leaped into one of the boats, and was rowed ashore to the consul, to whom he told his tale.
“It has been a trick,” said that gentleman; “there is no such street in the town as that on the despatch, and no such officer known.”
“What should you do?” cried Hilary. Then, without waiting to be answered, he cried, “I know,” and, hurrying back to his boat, he was soon on board, and with the sails once more spread he was on his way back to Portsmouth with the despatches, and three prisoners in the hold.