“And why should you remain, sir?” demanded the surgeon.  “Who are you?”

“I am her husband, sir,” replied Lord Sherbrooke, firmly and distinctly.

“Oh, sir, that makes a very great difference,” replied the surgeon.  “I make you a very low bow, and have nothing to say; only I hope you will behave quietly and rationally, and talk as little as possible.”

“I will do everything, sir,” replied Lord Sherbrooke, with a somewhat stately look—­“I will do everything that may tend to promote the recovery of one I love so well.”

At this moment, Wilton was in the doorway:  but the Lady Helen laid her hand upon his arm, saying, “Wait for me in the neighbouring room, Wilton.  I must speak with you before you go.”

Wilton promised to remain, and quitted the chamber.  He found at the top of the stairs the greater part of the sailors whom he had seen before, and with them Plessis himself and another man.

The sailors were talking with Plessis vehemently; and Wilton soon found that the worthy Frenchman was using all his powers of vituperation in various tongues—­French and English, with a word or two of Dutch every now and then, and some quaint specimens of Portuguese—­to express his indignation at the sailors for the unlucky business in which they had engaged.

The master of the vessel was defending himself stoutly, saying, “Why, didn’t I meet the boy from the Blackamoor’s Head at the very door of the place here? and didn’t he tell me that there was a man coming down with a Messenger of State to seize the ship and the cargo, and you, and I, and every one else?”

“Poo! nonsense, nonsense!” cried Plessis:  “all stuff and exaggeration.  No Messenger, I dare say, at all.  So be off, all of you, as fast as you can go; and get out of the way, for fear of any inquiries being made.”

“Why here’s the young gentleman himself!” cried the master:  “he don’t look like a Messenger, sure enough.  But there was another man that ran away, he may have been the Messenger.”

The man looked to Wilton as he spoke, who instantly replied, “You are right, sir.  He was a Messenger; but neither he nor I came hither about anything referring to you.  Indeed, neither of us even knew of your existence before we saw you.”

At that moment, the stranger who was standing beside Plessis, and who was very different from the sailors in appearance, stepped forward to Wilton, and said in a low tone, “May I, sir, ask your name?”

The countersign that Green had given him immediately returned to Wilton’s memory, and he replied, “My name is Brown, sir, but it might as well have been Green.”

“Oh no, sir,” replied the stranger, in the same tone, “every man should keep his right name, and be in his right place, which is the case with yourself in both respects at present;” and turning to Plessis, he said, “This is a friend of the Colonel’s, Plessis.  He sent me down to meet him and bring him here, because he could not come himself.”