"To your quarters, yeomen of the sheets and braces!" cried a clear and distinct voice from the poop of the frigate.
"This is his voice—that is the voice of Barton!" exclaimed Euphemia, a glow of joy replacing the paleness of her fine face to hear again the familiar accents of her lover—even in the hoarse words of command.
A moment after the courses were hauled up, and the light breeze swept through the rigging; boats were now putting off from the shore, and the high gunnels (or gun-walls) of the caravels were crowded with glad faces, and hurried but hearty recognitions of friends were interchanged. The seamen, clad in their grey gaberdines (each with St. Andrew's cross sewn on the breast thereof), and their flat blue bonnets, were seen swarming up the shrouds like bees, and displaying themselves upon the sharply braced yards; and then, as if by the wave of a wizard's wand, the great canvas sails disappeared, landsmen scarcely knew how, as they were neatly and compactly handed and laid in, revealing the taut black rigging and ponderous top-castles of the frigate—nor was Sir Alexander Mathieson, in the Queen Margaret, an instant behind the admiral in his manoeuvres.
"Stand by the anchor, lads!" shouted Barton, with a voice like a trumpet.
"All clear—yare, yare, my hearts!" replied the boatswain, Archy O'Anster from the forecastle, while as the frigate rounded her to, great blue ensign flapped in the wind.
"Then let go!"
A rushing sound, as the thick rope cable swept through the hawseholes, and a heavy plunge, as the ponderous iron anchor disappeared into the calm flow of the river, announced that the admiral's ship swung at her moorings in the harbour of Dundee, from whence, four months before, she had sailed for the coast of Flanders, as we have already mentioned, anent King James's dispute with the merchants of the Sluice and Dam.
At that time no man was so popular in Scotland as Sir Andrew Wood, unless we except Sir Andrew Barton; but now he was gone to his long home, and the people looked to his old messmate to avenge him. Three loud cheers were given from the shore as the frigates came to anchor; and from aloft and alow their crews responded, with the deep and hearty shout that can only come from the throats of those who are incessantly combating with the waves and winds.
"See, dear Lizzie," said Margaret, who, though usually silent and languid, had partaken of the excitement and bustle caused by the admiral's arrival, "a barge is leaving the side of the Yellow Frigate."
"Oh, the bonny little barge!" exclaimed Beatrix, dancing about her, and comparing the sixteen-oared boat to the towering caravel.