A larger boat, manned with a more numerous crew, was in waiting at the western stairs. The waterman with whom Ravenshaw had bargained in the morning, making sure of Holyday's face in the light of a lantern, guided the fugitives aboard with orderly swiftness. But already the noise of pursuit was in Thames Street; ere the last man—a slim fellow with a thickly bearded face, which he carried well forward from his body—was embarked, the cries, swelling suddenly as the pursuers emerged from the narrow passage, were upon the wharf, and the red flare of torches came with them.
The party in chase was headed by the goldsmith himself, no covering on his head, his gray hair standing out in the breeze; then came his apprentices, and sundry persons who had joined in the hue and cry; the rear was brought up by Sir Peregrine, lamed and winded. Master Etheridge made out the party in the boat at once, and, with threatening commands to the waterman to stop, led his people around to the stairs.
"Cast off!" growled Bill Tooby, the waterman, pulling the slim fellow aboard. The order was obeyed, and Millicent, who had sat more dead than alive since her father had come into sight, saw the wharf recede, and a strip of black water spread between the boat and the torch-lit party that stood gazing from the stairs.
"Oh, wench, I'll make thee rue this day!" cried the goldsmith, shaking his arms after the boat. As for Sir Peregrine, he looked utterly nonplussed.
Then her father spoke hurriedly to his followers, and called loudly for a boat. The waterman to whom Holyday had first led his own party was quick to respond. Meanwhile Tooby's craft headed down-stream. Millicent, looking anxiously back over the water, saw the other boat, or its lantern and one of the torches, shoot out from the stairs.
"Think you they will catch us?" she asked Master Holyday.
"I think nothing," said the poet, dejectedly, really thinking very small of himself for the mistake which had enabled the goldsmith to come upon their heels.
Surprised at the apparent change in Master Holyday since the forenoon, she turned to Tooby. "What think you, waterman?"