ning; and now here I be, o' Saturday night,
begging for a flagon of ale! Ask my man Tom, if ye misdoubt me. Seven
pieces of good Gascon wine, a ship that was mine own, and was my father's
before me, a Blessed Mary of plane-tree wood and parcel-gilt, and
thirteen pounds in gold and silver. Hey! what say ye? A man that fought
the French, too; for I have fought the French; I have cut more French
throats upon the high seas than ever a man that sails out of Dartmouth.
Come, a penny piece."

Neither Dick nor Lawless durst answer him a word, lest he should
recognise their voices; and they stood there as helpless as a ship
ashore, not knowing where to turn nor what to hope.

"Are ye dumb, boy?" inquired the skipper. "Mates," he added, with a
hiccup, "they be dumb. I like not this manner of discourtesy; for an a
man be dumb, so be as he's courteous, he will still speak when he was
spoken to, methinks."

By this time the sailor, Tom, who was a man of great personal strength,
seemed to have conceived some suspicion of these two speechless figures;
and being soberer than his captain, stepped suddenly before him, took
Lawless roughly by the shoulder, and asked him, with an oath, what ailed
him that he held his tongue. To this the outlaw, thinking all was over,
made answer by a wrestling feint that stretched the sailor on the sand,
and, calling upon Dick to follow him, took to his heels among the lumber.

The affair passed in a second. Before Dick could run at all, Arblaster
had him in his arms; Tom, crawling on his face, had caught him by one
foot, and the third man had a drawn cutlass brandishing above his head.

It was not so much the danger, it was not so much the annoyance, that now
bowed down the spirits of young Shelton; it was the profound humiliation
to have escaped Sir Daniel, convinced Lord Risingham, and now fall
helpless in the hands of this old, drunken sailor; and not merely
helpless, but, as his conscience loudly told him when it was too late,
actually guilty--actually the bankrupt debtor of the man whose ship he
had stolen and lost.

"Bring me him back into the alehouse, till I see his face," said
Arblaster.

"Nay, nay," returned Tom; "but let us first unload his wallet, lest the
other lads cry share."

But though he was searched from head to foot, not a penny was found upon
him; nothing but Lord Foxham's signet, which they plucked savagely from
his finger.

"Turn me him to the moon," said the skip