“What is asked of the royal cruiser?” demanded the captain of the vessel named, when the two boats were as near each other as seemed expedient.

“Confidence!” was the calm reply.—­“Come nearer Captain Ludlow; I am here with naked hands!  Our conference need not be maintained with trumpets.”

Ashamed that a boat belonging to a ship of war should betray doubts, the people of the yawl were ordered to go within reach of the oars.

“Well, Sir, you have your wish.  I have quitted my ship, and come to the parley, with the smallest of my boats.”

“It is unnecessary to say what has been done with the others!” returned Tiller, across the firm muscles of whose face there passed a smile that was scarcely perceptible.  “You hunt us hard, Sir, and give but little rest to the brigantine.  But again are you foiled!”

“We have a harbinger of better fortune, in a lucky blow that has been struck to-night.”

“You are understood, Sir; Master Seadrift has fallen into the hands of the Queen’s servants—­but take good heed! if injury, in word or deed, befall that youth, there live those who well know how to resent the wrong!”

“These are lofty expressions, to come from a proscribed man; but we will overlook them, in the motive.  Your brigantine, Master Tiller, lost its master spirit in the ‘Skimmer of the Seas,’ and it may be wise to listen to the suggestions of moderation.  If you are disposed to treat, I am here with no disposition to extort.”

“We meet in a suitable spirit, then; for I come prepared to offer terms of ransom, that Queen Anne, if she love her revenue, need not despise;—­but, as in duty to Her Majesty, I will first listen to her royal pleasure.”

“First, then, as a seaman, and one who is not ignorant of what a vessel can perform, let me direct your attention to the situation of the parties.  I am certain that the Water-Witch, though for the moment concealed by the shadows of the hills, or favored perhaps by distance and the feebleness of this light, is in the waters of the bay.  A force, against which she has no power of resistance, watches the inlet; you see the cruiser in readiness to meet her off the Hook.  My boats are so stationed as to preclude the possibility of escape, without sufficient notice, by the northern channel; and, in short, the outlets are all closed to your passage.  With the morning light, we shall know your position, and act accordingly.”

“No chart can show the dangers of rocks and shoals more clearly!—­and to avoid these dangers——?”

“Yield the brigantine, and depart.  Though outlawed, we shall content ourselves with the possession of the remarkable vessel in which you do your mischief, and hope that, deprived of the means to err, you will return to better courses.”

“With the prayers of the church for our amendment!  Now listen, Captain Ludlow, to what I offer.  You have the person of one much loved by all who follow the lady of the sea-green mantle, in your power; and we have a brigantine that does much injury to Queen Anne’s supremacy in the waters of this hemisphere;—­yield you the captive, and we promise to quit this coast, never to return.”