The way on the boat was checked; it came to a stop a few yards beyond the skiff and nearer the shore. Meanwhile Harry had been dragged on board the skiff, and lay drenched, shivering, gasping across the thwarts. "Cotched, the villain!" cried the ship’s master exultantly. "Pull alongside, men." A few strokes brought the two boats together. "I’ll thank ye to hand un over," said the master. "Zooks! he shall pay for this." He received no reply, but instead a voice which Harry, half dead as he was from cold and fatigue, recognized with a leaping heart, ordered the crew of the skiff to pull back to the brig. "Hi!" roared the master, as the boats parted, "are ye deaf or what? Hand over that there runaway; ’tis a deserter. Pull after ’em, men." The boat started in pursuit, the master shouting with increasing anger. The skiff came below the brig’s stern, where a rope ladder was hanging over the side. "Gi’ un up, d’ye hear? Gi’ un up, or ’twill be the worse for ye." "Gif him up! Ja, ja; certainly, but not now, mine vrient; not now, and not to you. Dat is not my way. We do not dings zo in Holland." "What in thunder are ye gibbering about?" roared the master—"you dirty swab of a Dutchman, you! I tell you he is a deserter. Hand un over, or I’ll have the law of ye." "De law! Zo, mine vrient. We will talk over dis matter as good vrients." Grootz sat down, while the men on the brig prepared to haul Harry, now limp with utter exhaustion, on deck. "I, Jan Grootz, find dis young man in de river; ver well. He float in de river; well again; he is what de law call flotsam—dat is zo. Now, mine vrient,"—here Grootz’s fat forefinger began to waggle—"flotsam, say de law, belong to de sovereign, dat is, to de lady Queen Anne. What is for me to do in such a case—for me, Jan Grootz? I render to Cæsar—who is de Queen—dat which is Cæsar’s—dat which belong to de gracious majesty Queen Anne. Derefore I gif up dis young man to de Queen’s officer at Gravesend—perhaps, when he is dry. Zo!" While this speech was being delivered in the Dutchman’s slow drawl, with a placid persuasiveness suited to a discussion between friends who did not see quite eye to eye, the master had been growing purple with rage. He was about to explode into invective when he saw that Harry was being swung up. "Give way, men!" he shouted. "Run her alongside."