"Of course; well, and what want your rebel lords with me?"
"I should have said Sir Patrick Gray."
"Well, well—speak quickly; for the foe comes on. Your message——"
"Concerns the Lady Margaret Drummond, and your bond in cipher with the Scottish friends of King Henry."
"Well," said Howard again, buckling his waist-belt with a furious jerk; "what of them?"
"Wood is about to attack you, and you must be well aware that if the Harry is taken, and these are found on board—the lady and the bond,—the hope of Henry's alliance will be crushed by her being discovered, and the safety of his allies in Scotland will be compromised by the documents."
"The curse of all the saints be on King Henry's plots and on those Scottish cravens who pander to the pay, the wiles, and selfish ends of England!" said Howard, with great bitterness. "Well, fellow, and what would your Laird of Kyneff advise?"
"That this troublesome dame be hove overboard, with Master Kraft's writings and the deep-sea lead tied together to her neck——"
"Confound thee, thou limb of Satan!—thou infamous and lubberly lurdane!" cried Howard, in a tempest of rage at this terrible proposition. "Begone," he added, smiting Borthwick on the mouth with his steel glove; "begone, sheer off; or by all that is sacred in heaven, I will have thee bound to a kedge, and flung overboard like St. Clement! Yoho there, Will Selby!" he said to his page, who stood without the cabin, "is that fisher-boat, which we took off Tyningham sands, astern yet?"
The page replied that it was.