Even in the uncertain lantern light, he had recognized his adversary's quality. Freshly roused from his bunk the Dutchman wore no wig on his shaven head but his fine pointed moustaches showed him to be a man of fashion. His embroidered linen nightshirt and the sword he wielded with the panache of a duelling master all proved that he was a gentleman, and no mistake.
The longer blade of the claymore was a disadvantage in the restricted space, and Cumbrae was forced to use the point rather than the double edges. The Dutchman thrust, then feinted low and slipped in under his guard. Cumbrae hissed with anger as the steel flew under his raised right arm, missing him by a finger's width and slashing a shower of splinters from the panel behind him.
Before his adversary could recover, the Buzzard whipped his left arm around the man's neck and enfolded him in a bear-hug. Locked together in the narrow passage, neither man could use his sword. They dropped them and wrestled from one end of the corridor to the other, snarling and snapping like a pair of fighting dogs, then grunting and howling with pain and outrage as first one then the other threw a telling fist to the head or smashed his elbow into the other's belly.
"Crack his skull," Cumbrae gasped at his men. "Knock the brute down." He was unaccustomed to being bested in a straight trial of muscle, but the other was his match. His up-thrust knee crashed into the Buzzard's crotch, and he howled again, "Help me, damn your poxy yellow livers! Knock the rogue down!"
He managed to get one hand free and lock it round the man's waist then, bright crimson in the face with the effort, he lifted him and swung him round so that his back was presented to a seaman waiting with a raised oak club in his fist. It cracked down with a practised and controlled blow on the back of the shaven pate, not hard enough to shatter bone, but with just sufficient force to stun the Dutchman and turn his legs to jelly under him. He sagged in Cumbrae's arms.
Puffing, the Buzzard lowered him to the deck, and all four seamen bounced on him, pinning his limbs and straddling his back. "Get a rope on this hellion," he panted, "afore he comes to and wrecks us and smashes up our prize."
"Another filthy English pirate!" the Dutchman mouthed weakly, shaking his head to clear his wits and thrashing around on the deck as he tried to throw off his captors.
"I'll not put up with your foul insults," Cumbrae told him genially, as he smoothed his ruffled red beard and retrieved his claymore. "Call me a filthy pirate if you will, but I'm no Englishman and I'll thank you to remember it."
"Pirates! All you scum are pirates."
"And who are you to call me scum, you with your great hairy arse sticking in the air?" In the scuffle the Dutchman's night shirt had tucked- up around his waist leaving him bare below. "I'll not argue with a man in such indecent attire. Get your clothes on, sir, and then we will continue this discourse."
Cumbrae ran up onto the deck, and found that they were already well out to sea. Muffled shouts and banging were coming from under the battened-down hatches, but his men had full control of the deck. "Smartly done, you canty bunch of sea-rats. The easiest fifty guineas you'll ever put in your purses. Give yerselves a cheer, and cock a snook at the devil," he roared so that even those up on the yards could hear him.
Robben Island was only a league dead ahead, and as the bay opened before them they could make out the Gull lying on the moonlit waters.
"Hoist a lantern to the masthead," Cumbrae ordered, "We we'll put a wee stretch of water between us before the cheese-heads in the fort rub the sleep out of their eyes."
As the lantern went aloft, the Gull repeated the signal to acknowledge. Then she hoisted her anchor and followed the prize out to sea.
"There is bound to be a good breakfast in the galley," Cumbrae told his men. "The Dutchies know how to tend their bellies. Once you have them locked neatly in their own chains, you can try their fare. Boatswain, keep her steady as she goes. I'm going below to have a peep at the manifest, and to find what we've caught ourselves."
The Dutch officers were trussed hand and foot, and laid out in a row on the deck of the main cabin. An armed seaman stood over each man. Cumbrae shone the lantern in their faces, and examined them in turn. The big warlike officer lifted his head and bellowed up at him, "I pray God that I live to see you swinging on the rope's end, along with all the other devil-spawned English pirates who plague the oceans." It was obvious that he had fully recovered from the blow to the back of his head.
"I must commend you on your command of the English language," Cumbrae told him. "Your choice of words is quite poetic. What is your name, sir?"
"I am Colonel Cornelius Schreuder in the service of the Dutch East India Company."
"How do you do, sir? I am Angus Cochran, Earl of Cumbrae."
"You, sit, are nothing but a vile pirate."
"Colonel, your repetitions are becoming just a wee bit tiresome. I implore you not to spoil a most protriising acquaintanceship in this manner. After all, you are to be my guest for some time until your ransom is paid. I am a privateer, sailing under the commission of His Majesty King Charles the Second. You, gentlemen, are prisoners of war."
"There is no war!" Colonel Schreuder roared at him scornfully. "We gave you Englishmen a good thrashing and the war is over. Peace was signed over two months ago."
Cumbrae stared at him in horror, then found his voice again. "I do not believe you, sir." Suddenly he was subdued and shaken. He denied it more to give himself time to think than with any conviction. News of the English defeat at the Medway and the battle of the Thames had been some months old when Richard Lister had given it to him. He had also reported that the King was suing for peace with the Dutch Republic. Anything might have happened in the meantime.
"Order these villains of yours to release me, and I will prove it to you." Colonel Schreuder was still in a towering rage, and Cumbrae hesitated before he nodded at his men. "Let him up and untie him," he ordered.
Colonel Schreuder sprang to his feet and smoothed his rumpled moustaches as he stormed off to his own cabin. There, he took down a silk robe from the head of his bunk. Tying the belt around his waist he went to his writing bureau and opened the drawer. With frosty dignity, he came back to Cumbrae and handed him a thick bundle of papers.
The Buzzard saw that most were official Dutch proclamations in both Dutch and English, but that one was an English news-sheet. He unfolded it with trepidation, and held it at arm's length. It was dated August 1667. The headline was in heavy black type two inches tall. PEACE
SIGNED WITH DUTCH REPUBLIC!
As his eye raced down the page, his mind tried to adjust to this disconcerting change in circumstances. He knew that with the signing of the peace treaty all Letters of Marque, issued by either side in the conflict, had become null and void. Even had there been any doubt about it, the third paragraph on the page confirmed it. All privateers of both combatant nations, sailing under commission and Letters of Marque, have been ordered to cease warlike expeditions forthwith and to return to their home ports to submit themselves to examination by the Admiralty assizes.