Ramage walked along the gangway and, noting that the only lantern on deck was on the grating, giving the drinkers enough light to see when their glasses were nearly empty, shouted down to Auguste: 'Merde! Hurry up or it'll be dawn!'

The bosun watched. 'You'll catch yourself on those hooks,' he sneered.

'Then you won't get a quarter,' Gilbert said.

'We'll see,' the bosun said, and Ramage tried to decide whether or not he imagined a curious inflexion in the voice. Finally he decided that it was just the man's local accent combined with a normal sneering and bullying manner.

As soon as the lines were all on board, the four Frenchmen, led by Ramage, carried them aft to where Sarah waited. The light was poor and confusing, a muddling blend of faint moonlight and a weak yellow glow - an artist would call it a wash - from the lantern on the grating.

The bosun, Ramage noted thankfully, had remained at the gangway, and the sentry had gone back to rejoin his three fellow seamen sitting and sprawling on the forms. So the sentry had a musket - he had left it propped against the edge of the coaming - and Ramage saw there were two more within reach of the other sailors.

As Ramage busied himself with the fishing lines close to the taffrail, he managed to indicate to the men that he wanted them working with their backs to the bosun so that Sarah could give them their pistols. As the men moved casually into position Ramage suddenly thought of the fourteen Britons being held as prisoners somewhere below and the captain imprisoned by rheumatism. Eleven seamen, the master and two lieutenants - they would be in irons, probably somewhere forward on the lowerdeck.

Tonight the Murex brig, he thought grimly, certainly holds an odd collection of people, ranging from the daughter of a marquis to seven French sailors loyal to the Revolution, a post-captain in the Royal Navy, and a rheumatic lieutenant, and four Frenchmen who, although perhaps not entirely Royalist, were certainly against the First Consul.

When the ingredients were mixed together, he mused as he saw Sarah dip into the bucket and give Auguste a pistol, it would be like mixing charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, each in themselves harmless but in the right proportion forming gunpowder and needing only a spark -

'Step back from those fishing lines!'

The bosun's sudden bellow paralysed the five men.

'Woman! Come over here!'

Rape, Ramage thought: the bosun and his men intend to rape Sarah. And only Auguste has a pistol: the bosun shouted before Sarah had time to give out the others.

'Oh, lieutenant!' Sarah said, her voice apparently trembling with fear. 'What do you want me for?'

'Ah, no, not for that yet,' the bosun boomed, although the regret at any delay was obvious in his voice. 'You'll make a good hostage against the behaviour of your husband and his friends.'

Ramage saw that the bosun was aiming a musket at them. The other men were now laughing but still sprawled on the forms, two of them holding mugs in their hands.

Ramage said: 'What are we supposed to do? We are poor fishermen. You gave us permission to fish.'

'Ah yes, but you do not keep yourself informed, citizen. From midnight, patrols are searching all the streets and houses of Brest to find more seamen. A thousand more. The First Consul needs many more men for all these ships,' he said, waving a hand towards the main anchorage. 'We received orders during the day to see if any of the British prisoners in this ship want to volunteer - and then tonight the five of you row past...'

'Oh my poor husband!' Sarah moaned, but Ramage noticed she still clutched the bucket to her, like a mother clasping her child.

Ramage took two steps towards her but the bosun snarled: 'Halt - another step and I shoot you dead.' He glanced over his shoulder at his men. 'To arms, citizens! Cover them with your muskets.'

There was a clatter as one of the forms tipped over, and Ramage saw the men pick up their muskets and cock them. Five muskets ... He had not seen the others lying on the deck beyond the coaming.

Now the bosun was getting excited by the nearness of Sarah. 'Ah yes, the fisherman's wife! Well, take a good look at him, my dear, because you'll not see him again for a long time. A very long time. Ever again, perhaps, if the English fight like they did before.'

Ramage took another step forward but the bosun swung the barrel of the musket. 'Stand still. We'll be taking you below in a minute.'

With that he turned to Sarah. 'Yes, look well at your man.' Then, with a sudden movement of one hand he ripped away the front of Sarah's dress and as her breasts shone in the moonlight he screamed at Ramage: 'Look! Look, you fish pedlar - you won't see her again for a very long time. But' - he paused, staring wide-eyed and slack-mouthed at Sarah as she tried to clutch her dress closed with one hand, the other still holding the bucket - 'I'll look after her for you, won't I, my dear?'

He reached across and pulled Sarah's hand away so that the torn dress again gaped open. 'Look after these wretches,' the bosun ordered his men. 'Now,' he said to Sarah, almost slobbering the words, 'you come down to my cabin!'

'No,' she said, calmly and clearly, 'and you put the musket down on the deck and order your men to come over one at a time and put their muskets beside it!'

The bosun stood, jaw dropped in surprise and then gave a harsh, ugly laugh.

'Be careful,' Sarah warned. 'Your life is in danger.' Her voice was cold but the bosun was too excited to notice.

'Oh, she has spirit, this one!' he exclaimed.

'No,' Sarah said, taking a step forward, 'a pistol.'

A moment later the bosun pulled in his bulging stomach as the muzzle of Sarah's pistol jabbed it.

'You would never dare! Ho!' he half turned to his men and called over his shoulder: 'Watch me pull this hen off her nest!' He reached out and grabbed Sarah's dress again.

Ramage saw the men beginning to move, uncertain what was happening because Sarah's hand holding the pistol was hidden from them by the bosun's bulky body. Suddenly there was a bright flash and bang and a scream from the bosun, who staggered back three steps and then collapsed on the deck.

'Seize her, seize her!' one of the matelots screamed and then, as Sarah made a sudden movement and said something to the quartet that Ramage did not hear, the man shouted urgently: 'No! Don't move! The cow has another pistol! Don't shoot, citoyenne - it was all in jest!'

By now Ramage was running towards the bucket, a hand groping for a pistol and cocking it as he kept an eye on the four matelots. In one almost continuous movement he was moving towards them with the pistol aimed. Behind him he could hear the thudding feet and then the clicking of locks as the pistols were cocked.

'My wife has dealt with the bosun. Unless you all put your muskets down I shall shoot you - the man nearest the mainmast. My friends - ah, here they are - will shoot the rest of you.'

He said to Auguste conversationally: 'I have the man on the right in my sights. The next is for you. Then Gilbert and then Louis.'

The four matelots seemed frozen by the speed of events. 'Muskets down on the deck,' Ramage reminded them.

Sarah said with the same calm: 'Shoot one of them, to encourage the others!'

The matelots heard her and hastily put the guns down on the deck. 'Collect them up, Gilbert and Albert. Now you,' he gestured to the nearest man, 'come here.'

As the matelot reluctantly walked the few feet, outlined against the brighter light thrown by the lantern and clearly expecting to be shot, Ramage wrenched his knife from its sheath and held it in his left hand.

'Closer,' he ordered. 'Come on, stand close to me, my friend!'

The matelot was a plump, pleasant-looking man with a chubby face, but now his brow was soaked in perspiration as though water was dribbling from his hair; his eyes jerked from pistol to knife and his tongue ran round his lips as though chasing an elusive word.