"Does your grace see that little boat just before us?"
"Yes," replied Richard.
"I am much mistaken," resumed Sudbury, quickly, "if that figure in the dark cloak is not he whose evil counsel has spread like a pestilence through the land."
"What! the audacious monk who intruded upon us at Kennington?"
"The same, your grace, if my judgment be correct."
"Let him be instantly seized!" replied the impetuous Richard. The boat was, accordingly, hailed, and John Ball dragged into the barge, and at once identified by Sudley and De Boteler. The monk did not resist either the capture or the bands that were bound around him; neither did he reply to the reproaches that were showered upon him; but silently and unresistingly suffered himself to be thrown into the bottom of the barge.
In a few minutes after this was effected, Richard's quick eye was suddenly attracted by an appearance on the beach.
"By my faith, cousin," said he, addressing Thomas of Woodstock, "yonder are the varlets! Do you see how bravely their pennons are waving, and how, here and there, among their black heads, something bright glitters in the sun?"
"That is their weapons, my liege," said Woodstock.
"Stolen from the castles and houses they have plundered," added Sudbury.