"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. "Then see this ruffian put into her; give the two fishermen a handful of tokens, and bid them cast off and begone, in the devil's name, lest I hang this recreant Scot where I fain would hang his masters." In two minutes after this our knight of the scarlet mantle found himself hustled over the side of the _Harry_ into a shore-boat, in which were two poor fishermen, who, after receiving a handful of those leaden pledges which the English used in the time of their seventh and eighth Henries in lieu of copper coinage, gladly pulled away for Tyningham Sands, where their wives and children had been waiting for them in sore apprehension and weeping the livelong day. Anxious to get clear of the engagement which was to take place, they stepped their mast, hoisted their sail, and prayed hard to St. Bey for a favourable breeze; but little wind came, and even that was against them; so they bequeathed the poor saint to the devil, spat on their hands, and betook them to their oars, like men. "Thank Heaven, my ship is freed from the contamination of such a wretch," said Howard; "though 'twere not worth while to lose my temper with him. By St. George, I profit little by old Caxton's 'Book of Good Manners;' though I have studied it more than stars or compass since Margaret Drummond came on board."