"I'll wake them, Madame," Johnnie said, "I'll stir them up," his voice full of that thin, high note which comes to those who feel themselves hunted. He clapped his hand to his side to find his sword; his fingers touched an empty scabbard. Then he remembered.
"I am swordless," he cried, forgetting everything else as he realised it.
Behind him there was a thud and a clanking, as John Hull dropped the leathern bag he held.
"Say not so, master," he said, and held out to the young man a sword in a scabbard of crimson leather, its hilt of gold wire, its guard set with emeralds and rubies, the belt which hung down on either side of the blade, of polished leather studded with little stars and bosses of gold.
"What is this?"
"Look you, sir, as we passed out of Madame's room, I saw this sword leaning in a corner of the wall by the door. His Highness had left it there, doubtless, ere he went upstairs. 'So,' says I to myself, 'this is true spoil of war, and in especial for my master!'"
Johnnie took the sword, looked at it for a moment, and then unbuttoned his own belt and girded it on.
"So shall it be for a remembrance to me," he said, "for now and always."
But he did not need to use it. Madame's exertions had been sufficient. Her shrill, angry voice had wakened the watermen. They rose to their feet, wiped their eyes, and, seeing persons of quality before them, they hastened down the little hard and embarked the company in their wherry. Then they pulled out into the stream. The tide was running fast and free towards the Nore, but they made for a large ship of quite six hundred tons, which was at anchor in mid-stream. When they came up to it, and caught the hanging ladder upon the quarter with a boat-hook, the deck was already busy with seamen in red caps, and a tarry, bearded old salt, his head tied up in a woollen cloth, was standing on the high poop, and cursing the men below. Madame La Motte saw him first. She put two fat fingers in her mouth and gave a long whistle, like a street boy.
The captain looked round him, up into the rigging where the sailors were already busy upon the yards, looked to his right, looked to his left, and then straight down from the poop upon the starboard quarter, and saw Madame La Motte. He stumbled down the steps on to the main deck, and peered over the bulwarks. "Mother of God!" he cried, "and what's this, so early in the morning?"