ADVANCED WOMANHOOD IN 1573.
Such a welcome is given Guy and Haring as only the besieged, despairing
and cut-off give to friends from the outer world.
“You bring news of succor?” cries one Dutch burgher on guard.
“The Prince’s fleet is almost ready,” whispers another with anxious
lips. “We have word by a carrier pigeon that he is fitting out an
expedition by land.”
“Tell me of my wife in Delft, Margaret Enkhuysen—you left there, didn’t
you?” asks another.
But explaining their business and delivering over their three sacks of
flour they are shortly afterward taken into the town by the Schalkwyker
gate. Here Guy needs no word of mouth to tell him that he is in a town
stricken by wounds and death, by siege and famine. The streets are
dark, no lights burn save in the great church, now used as a hospital,
and in the town-hall, where Ripperda, the Commandant, is busy with his
officers.
The place is unnaturally silent. There are no barking dogs, nor even
yelling cats; these have been eaten. The only sounds in the streets are
the tramp of patrols relieving each other, or companies of men marching
to duty on the walls. The voices of the sentries are hollow and weak
with hunger.
Guy, leaving Haring at the Swan Inn, before which sit no happy
burghers, and within which all is dark, makes his way to the great
ravelin between the St. Jan’s gate and the Kruys gate, where he is
informed that Pieter Kies is on guard, and gets interview with him.
“Why didn’t you send the daughter of Niklaas Bodé Volcker out of the
town when it was besieged?” Guy asks indignantly.
“Because we had use for her.”
“Use for her? How? She is a woman, a non-combatant.”
“Women are not non-combatants here. Were it not for women we men would
hardly hold this town.”
“You don’t mean to say that Mina fights?”
“No, she fills sand bags and sews them up, but there are plenty of
women who do fight. Fight as well as men. Women are men here! no, they
are more than that, they are angels of mercy—angels of death; nursing
the wounded one day and killing the Spaniards the next, with their own
hands. There’s the widow Kenau Hasselaer, the Spaniards fly from her
faster than they would from any man in the garrison.”
“Nevertheless,” says Guy, unheeding this tribute to the advanced
womanhood of the sixteenth century, “I have promised my friend, this
girl’s lover, to take her safely out of Haarlem.”
“How can you get her out?” queries the burgher grimly.
“That will be my business if she will take the chance.”
“You’ll have to see Commandant Ripperda. If he says so, well and good.
If not, I’ll not let you take the responsibility of trying to get Mina
out of this town. She’s safer here. Do you believe we’re going to
surrender? Not while we have anything to eat.”
With this Guy goes away. But Ripperda, the commandant, is busy and
cannot be seen; so Chester, going to the Swan, there meets Haring, and
finds the inn as clean as it was before; in fact, too clean, for there
is nothing to dirty it with—nothing to eat save a porridge made of
grass taken from the streets. Therefore the two, having taken the
precaution of bringing their provisions with them in a bag, fall to
upon their own.
But the smell of strong salt red herrings is so great that the children
congregate about the door, and the widow Hasselaer, who has just come
in from active duty, and is putting aside her breast-plate and head
piece, cries out savagely: “Dolts! what are you doing? Luxuries are for
the wounded!” With this she sweeps the Spanish wine, spirits, bread,
herrings, and every morsel they have, away from them to carry out to
the Kerk hospital, though her lips water at the sight of such unknown
delicacies, and the children follow her, sobbing for “a little
herring—just a taste, just a smell!”
But Kenau Hasselaer is made of sterner stuff and the wounded get even
the herring smell.
Guy and Haring look glumly at each other. “To-morrow morning,” says the
Englishman, “we’ll report ourselves and get rationed. It’s half a pound
of mouldy bread, I believe, made of rye husks and ground oats.”
“Voor den duivel!” growls the Dutchman. “We must get out of here while
we have strength. If that infernal woman had only left us the spirits!”
Then the two go gloomily to bed and fall into the deep sleep of
tremendous fatigue, having toiled with their boat all the night before.
From this they are awakened by the awful din of arms, the clang of all
the bells in the Groote Kerk and the lesser churches mingling with the
clash and boom of bombard and culverin and saker.
Besides this Vrouw Hasselaer’s sturdy hand is upon them, shaking them
out of their slumbers.
“Wake up, sluggards!” she cries, “and fight for your lives! Up! I’ll
show you the way.”
Knowing that if the Spaniards take the town they will certainly butcher
them, Guy and his companion hastily seize their arms and run with the
widow through dark streets that are now full of men turning out to
fight for their desolate homes.
Arriving at the wall just east of the Kruys gate, which has been made
into a block house, the two, used as they are to scenes of battle, find
themselves in such a fight as they have never seen before.
For they are in the woman’s department.
“Hel en duivel! There’s not a man here. We two can’t hold this long
work,” cries Haring.
“You can’t?” exclaims Kenau Hasselaer, “but we’ll do it for you. Women
of Haarlem, show these Springalds how to fight!”
This they do with all the might, potency and viciousness of the
advanced womanhood of the Sixteenth Century, almost shaming Haring, who
is a hero, and Chester, who is as sturdy a Captain as ever England sent
forth, by deeds of prowess done by Kenau Hasselaer and her sister
Amazons that night.
“Weerlicht! Cats are nothing to them!” gasps Haring, as he sees the way
they handle the Spanish veterans, who come on thinking the town is
already in their grasp; for this attack has been a surprise and nearly
succeeded.
To make preparations for the great sortie that is to be combined with
Orange’s attack from the lake, word of which has been brought into town
by carrier pigeons, the guards had been weakened upon the outer
ravelin, the great work just behind the moat running between the Kruys
and the St. Jan’s gates, and immediately facing Don Frederico’s
headquarters.
This ravelin having been crumbled down and breached under the
unremitting fire of the heavy Spanish batteries; during the night the
moat had been quickly bridged by pontoons thrown across by Vargas.
Crossing this the veterans of Romero, De Billy and Vargas had ensconced
themselves quietly at the foot of the ravelin.
Then taking breath, their advance had crawled up the breaches and
before the Dutch sentinels, worn out with watching, fatigue and hunger,
knew what they were about, had killed a good many of them and got
possession of the work the Spaniards think the key to the town.
Besides this, they have gained the great block house at the Kruys gate,
and Romero has captured the Jan’s gate.
“Cut in! Slay, kill—Haarlem is ours!” is the cry that reaches Don
Frederico’s happy ears as he orders up reinforcements to make his
success certain.
But even as the Spaniards spring over the ravelin to drop down right
into Haarlem, they find they have not captured it.
As the batteries, week after week, have crumbled the ravelin, the
besieged, chiefly the women and children, have erected directly behind
it a great demi-lune of sandbags and earth, stronger against cannon and
quite as difficult of escalade as the ravelin. This, masked from sight,
is unknown to the Spanish until they mount the first fortification to
see the second confronting them.
As Alva’s soldiers look on it, this demi-lune is being manned by the
hastily alarmed people of the neighboring streets. A moment after they
are joined by the German troops of the garrison—with a shout, the
Spaniards come on—the fight begins.
The weakest spot in Haarlem wall is that immediately next the block
house of the Kruys gate, the one now held by Vargas’s veterans. This
intrenchment is held by Kenau and her lady militia. This has been their
post of honor, and Ripperda, commander of the city, knows that into no
hands (and he has veterans of many wars, and eight hundred gallant
Scotchmen now reduced to one-half, and the French company under Courie)
could he so well trust this point of weakness as to those unto whom he
has given it.
For these women are fighting not only for all that manhood values, but
in addition to all that their safety from defilement. Every one of
them, maid, wife or widow, shudders as she thinks of Spanish mercy in a
stormed town to hapless womanhood.
Alva’s veterans come confidently on. They have conquered one rampart,
why not the other?
Up the slope they surge with cries of “Philip!” and “Don Frederico!” to
find a cordial welcome from Sorosis at the summit.
Behind the rampart is a great fire and a mighty cauldron full of
boiling brine. First comes a volley to make the enemy give back for one
fatal minute, each woman firing her musket in the faces of the coming
foe, who hesitate under the carnage.
“Wash out these Spaniards!—pass the water up!” cries the widow, and
seizing the first bucket-full of boiling stuff, she swashes it in the
face of an Italian captain, whose tried armor is not proof against this
cruel scalding. As he screams in agony she cuts him down.
Then with the deft hands of the washtub her women deluge with boiling
brine the Spaniards, who shriek and scream and writhe in agony.
But others from behind press on; at these the women go with
broadswords. Caring naught for death, they carry no shields, but swing
the big weapons with both arms. Against the weight of such a blow no
skill of fence from single arm is potent.
“Pikemen to the front!” screams De Billy, but a moment after he is
wounded and carried from the fray and the pikemen do not come soon
enough, for Kenau Hasselaer, heading her women veterans, charges down
the demi-lune and sweeps every living Spaniard into the block house by
the Kruys gate.
With this she laughs hoarsely: “We’ve got it full. Now, Vrouw
Jannaps—thy work!”
And a woman who has been waiting quietly on the top of the demi-lune
springs down and coming back a minute later cries, “I’ve fired the
mine!”
This is reported almost at the same moment by the mine itself and the
great block house of the Kruys gate, that has been prepared for its
Spanish visitors with some twenty barrels of gunpowder, goes up into
the air, and with it some hundred Walloon infantry of De Billy and a
detachment of Vargas veterans.
Then they pelt the last unwounded Spaniard back across the little
bridge and though Romero holds with his company the St. Jan’s gate on
the other side of the demi-lune, the fire from the gabled houses near
by, and two or three small cannon and sakers that have been brought up,
is so fierce, that not one of the sentries can put his head outside its
masonry and live. From this reception, Romero having had an eye shot
out leads back his men—those that can get away;—for now comes the
greatest horror of it all.
Taught by their adversaries’ many deeds of hideous cruelty, the Dutch
sally forth and slowly and in cold blood as butchers do their work,
dispatch the Spanish wounded, who cry in vain for quarter.
In all this fight Guy and Haring have stood side by side with Kenau
Hasselaer. Where the women have charged they have charged with them,
and she coming back laughs and pats them on the shoulders, crying:
“Good boys, you did well, almost as well as if you had been women! You
have the courage to fight, will you have the courage to starve with
us?”
But this starving matter is neither to Haring’s nor Guy’s liking;
besides this, they are there for a special purpose. So getting word
with Ripperda, who stands on the rampart surrounded by his officers,
Guy broaches his errand to him, asking permission to take Bodé
Volcker’s daughter from the place.
“I am right glad to see you again, First of the English, and supposed
you had come to stay with us,” answers the Holland commander.
“Oh! you don’t need fighters, men nor women,” returns Chester. “You’ve
got too many eaters in the town now.”
“You don’t think they’ll capture us?”
“Not by arms,” says the Englishman. “Therefore I say the fewer mouths
to feed the safer you are. A provision train or a few boat loads of
flour are worth more to you than a thousand veterans.”
“You are right,” responds Ripperda, his face growing gloomy. “But I and
those with me are here to stay, even with these horrors—Look!”
Daylight has now broken, and peering forth from an embrasure for fear
of Spanish arquebus balls, Guy sees the picture of a Dutch town
leaguered by the Spaniards. Before him is the demi-lune, its face
dotted with dead, its ditch filled with them. Opposite stands the other
rampart, the one won by the Spaniards and still occupied by them.
Behind this the moat fed by the Spaarne river, commanded by the Spanish
batteries of bombards and breaching cannon.
Then come clumps of trees to the left, and the Leprosy hospital; beyond
that and all around circling the view are the tents and huts of Alva’s
besieging army, cutting off this hapless town from friends and food.
To Chester’s ears come faintly on the morning breeze the clang of arms
and moving companies and reliefs marching to the intrenchments.
Scattered over this scene are half a dozen windmills, and in front of
them another erection, which makes Guy, soldier as he is, bite his
lips.
It is a huge gallows upon which twenty bodies dangle, some by the
necks, others by the feet.
And now, horror of horrors, the Spanish executioner, comes with his
assistants quite early to his morning work. With him on hurdles are
despairing wretches bound hand and foot. So getting to their business,
they take down the dead to hang up the living who here, in sight of
their friends and townsmen, shall occupy it with their dying agonies
this day.
There is a cry of rage and anguish from the walls—these tortured ones
are neighbors they had talked with the day before, prisoners taken
during a sortie. And one woman screams: “Oh, merciful God, I see
him—they are hanging up my Klaas!” and falls down moaning.
“We’ll do the same,” says Ripperda, “head for head! Call the Provost
Captain!”
Soon some twenty Spaniards dangle from the walls in hideous reply to
savage challenge.
Enraged by this Alva’s soldiers on the neighboring ravelin toss
something into the Dutch demi-lune.
It falls almost at the feet of Guy and Ripperda.
The Dutch captain bending down inspects this, then mutters suddenly to
Guy: “This head is placarded ‘Captain Oliver, of Mons.’”
“Good God!” and with eyes filled with anguish Chester sees once more,
for the last time, the face of his dead friend.
“You knew he was dead?” asks Ripperda.
“Yes,” mutters Guy, “but I couldn’t tell of it here; his betrothed
would learn.”
“Yes, the girl Mina was to marry our patriot!” sighs the commander.
Then he says hoarsely: “Take her away if you can get her forth alive.
Take her away quickly; don’t tell her until you get her from the horror
of this. Good bye, my English friend. If we meet again Haarlem will be
free from Spanish butchers.”
And the two make their farewell with mutual respect.
From this Guy, going to Pieter Kies, says: “I have the Commandant’s
orders. Take me to Mina Bodé Volcker!”
Getting word with the girl, who is very pale from famine and anxiety,
she sobs to him: “You have come to take me to Antony. I know it. I see
it in your face.”
“Yes,” mutters Chester.
“Where is he? How was it Oliver didn’t come with you?”
“Oh he—he came part way,” falters Guy, and goes with Haring to make
arrangements for their journey.
The only chance to get the girl out is by the lake. To do that they
must escape at night.
Taking Mina down through the Schalkwyker gate by the little line of
intrenchments and fortifications along the left bank of the Spaarne, by
which the besieged still keep communication open with the lake, they
get to the fort upon its shore over which the flag of Orange flies, and
preparing their boat, wait for nightfall.
This comes, but scarce soon enough, they are so very hungry. But with
it also comes something that aids their enterprise.
Five Spanish galleys are guarding the Fuik. Sails are seen to the
southeast. Four of these spreading their canvas, go out to reconnoiter,
and by night have not returned. There is now but one galley to avoid,
though she puts out two patrol boats.
“I think I can give a good account of those cursed bateaux that keep
provisions from us,” mutters the Holland commander of the fort.
Forthwith he prepares three boats to attack the patrolling ones of the
Spaniards at nightfall.
As these go out to make attack, Chester and Haring set sail upon the
little skiff, and, dodging the galley, which is now engaged with the
Haarlemers, are soon out upon the open lake, scudding to the south
before a fair wind.
Before daylight they are at the Kaag, and passing from there to Delft;
the next evening, Guy finds himself acquitted of his oath.
Having placed his charge in comfort and retirement in the inn called
the Gilded Tower, Chester strolls into the wine room of the hostelry to
meet astonishment. A wild-eyed creature on seeing him rises up, his
teeth chattering as he mutters: “Hel en duivel! It is a dead man!”
It is the merchant Bodé Volcker, who has been at Delft for months
beseeching the Prince of Orange to save his daughter.
“Not at all,” whispers Guy. Then he adds savagely: “Shut your
chattering teeth till you hear,” and seizing Niklaas’s arm leads him to
private converse.
“So you recognized me?” the Englishman says under his breath.
“Yes, but you are dead. The news came months ago to Antwerp that
Colonel Guido Amati was killed at the battle on the ice in combat with
‘The First of the English.’”
“No, I’ve recovered from my wounds!”
“Then, unfortunate man, if they discover you, a colonel in the Spanish
army, here, you’re no better than dead. But I will not betray you,”
mutters Bodé Volcker. “You saved my child once, to take her where she
is worse off.” Then he cries, wringing his hands: “Save her again, my
Mina! She’s in Haarlem, a refugee from justice. If they take the city
it is her death. You have Alva’s ear, plead with him. You have
influence with his daughter, speak to her!”
“That is unnecessary,” answers Guy, “I have saved your daughter
already.”
“Saved her? How? Where?
“Right here at the Gilded Tower.”
“Here! In Gods naam! You have saved her? Take me to her, my Mina who
was lost—my Mina who is found!”
And the old man, delirious with joy, fondles Guy’s hand and invokes
blessings upon him.
A minute after he turns to fly to the child he had grieved for, but Guy
stays him and says: “First I must tell you something.”
“What is it? Don’t keep me.”
“Only for her sake,” he answers, and pours out his tale of Oliver’s
death, then whispers: “Tell it to her—I tried but could not.”
In his story Chester is compelled to reveal to the merchant who he
really is, and this seems to take more hold upon Bodé Volcker than even
the painter’s death. He gasps astounded: “You! ‘The First of the
English?’ You! You came to Antwerp—did mortal man ever take such risk?
Ten thousand crowns are now put upon your head since the battle on the
ice. Why did you take such risk?” Here he suddenly cries: “Oh! Bij den
hemel! I see. You’re in love with Alva’s daughter.”
“Yes,” says Guy, who feels that he has now put this man under such
obligation that his secret is safe with him. “She is my affianced wife,
I am going to marry the Duke’s daughter.”
“Then you must hurry, young man, you must hurry,” says Bodé Volcker
solemnly.
“Why?”
“Because—Ah I guess the reason now!—it was after the death of Guido
Amati—she has become religious. It is said she will become a nun.”
“A NUN!” screams Guy. “Because she’s heard that Guido Amati is dead.
This is a rare and cruel joke!” and bursts, with sinking heart and
sickening soul, into hideous laughter, jeering at himself, as Bodé
Volcker hurries away to take his daughter once more to his arms.
BOOK III.
THE DUKE’S UNLUCKY PENNY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“IS IT A DREAM?”
From his interview with his daughter Bodé Volcker comes out a great
sadness in his Flemish eyes, and finding Guy waiting for him, breaks
forth: “This painter Oliver! What right had such a man to love anything
but his country? What right had he, with torture hanging over him, to
love my child?”
“The right that all men have to love the beautiful,” sighs Guy, Bodé
Volcker’s surprising revelations as Doña de Alvas’ convent yearnings
having made him not only romantic, but sad.
“But not the right to sacrifice the beautiful. Oliver’s treachery to
Alva put danger upon Mina, and now his death has broken her heart. She
cannot even go to her home for fear of Alva’s torture. Alva!” shrieks
the merchant, “who has brought this misery upon me and mine. Alva! who
has ruined me.”
“Ruined you? How?” queries Chester uneasily. He has been waiting for
the merchant, being in need of financial aid, and this talk of ruin
makes him anxious.
“How?” echoes Bodé Volcker. “First by destroying my home. Second by
destroying my business with his tenth penny tax, and third by taking
from me as a forced loan for the Spanish government five hundred
thousand crowns.”
“Do you want to get it back again?”
“Heavens and earth! Yes. The money is as good as lost. What wild talk
are you jabbering to me?” says the merchant derisively.
“It isn’t wild talk!”
“Not wild talk about Alva’s repaying his debts?”
“No, for I’ll pay them.”
“You—a fighting man—pay five hundred thousand crowns? Your sufferings
have made you crazy,” cries Niklaas, who thinks Guy is jeering him.
“Not at all. Advance me ten thousand crowns, stake your life as I stake
mine, and I’ll give you your five hundred thousand crowns and
vengeance.”
This comes in determined whisper from the Englishman, who has thought
this matter over, and concluded that, Oliver being gone, Bodé Volcker,
with his Antwerp storehouse, Antwerp ships and Antwerp knowledge, is
the man to aid him in this affair, if he has the nerve.
“Stake my life? I’ll stake it a hundred times to gain vantage of the
man who has robbed me!”
“Very well, come with me to my room, we must talk very privately of
this,” says Guy, who now feels pretty certain that though Bodé Volcker
might not risk his life for patriotism, he would risk it a dozen times
over to get back his five hundred thousand crowns. But it is not this
man’s motives he cares for, but this man’s action.
Arrived at Chester’s room the merchant says: “What do you want?”
“First I want a hundred crowns to pay John Haring, who has helped me
get your daughter out of Haarlem.”
“I will—I’ll give Haring a thousand. And I’ll give you my love, my
devotion, whatever else you want for saving my Mina from despair and
death,” answers the merchant in grateful voice.
“Your life, perhaps.”
“Yes, I’ll give that too, to get vantage of Alva.”
“Then,” says Guy, “listen to me.” And swearing Bodé Volcker very
solemnly to secrecy, he tells him everything—everything connected with
Alva’s statue, everything connected with Alva’s treasure, for he
believes in no half confidences to this man, the risk of whose life he
demands for his own selfish purpose.
“Very well. What do you want me to do?” answers the Dutchman, his eyes
lighting up as he hears of Alva’s buried treasure, the joy of pirate
plunder coming into his merchant’s soul. “Should I not have a little
more—interest, at least?”
“Yes, interest—six hundred thousand, or, as your life is worth
something—we’ll make it seven hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Very well—to business! What do you want?”
“First, for time presses, I want clearance papers procured as soon as
possible from the town of Amsterdam for the Esperanza that I have still
at Flushing harbor. Can you procure them?”
“From Amsterdam? Impossible. But I can get you clearance and cargo from
Stockholm.”
“That will take two weeks—some nearer port!”
“From Dunquerque? That’ll only take three or four days.”
“From Dunquerque! All right,” answers Chester. “With the Esperanza I
shall go, consigned to you, as Captain Andrea Blanco, once more right
into the harbor of Antwerp and lay there till I get Alva’s treasures
and Alva’s daughter or lose my life. It isn’t known in that town that
you came here?”
“No, I was very careful about that,” says Bodé Volcker. “They think I
am in France buying Lyons’ silks. I’ll sail with you from Dunquerque
myself. That’ll make everything seem very right—Lyons’ silks from a
French port.”
“And afterwards if it is discovered you’ll lose your life.”
“That’s all right,” says the Dutchman. “Antwerp’s commerce is going to
the dogs and I’m going to leave it with whatever money I can gather
together. That seven hundred and fifty thousand crowns will help me.”
So all the arrangements are made and every little detail settled, even
to Mina’s remaining quietly in Delft, which is the best place for the
poor girl at present.
“She has no heart for anything,” mutters Bodé Volcker, then grinding
his teeth, adds: “But I’ll have revenge upon the man who would have
sent her to the lash and Spin-house, and because I am her father,
robbed me of five hundred thousand crowns.”
This very night Guy takes a purse of gold to John Haring, of Horn, and
putting it into the man’s hands says: “This is your reward for the
danger and trouble that have come to you for my sake!”
“Donder en Bliksem!” ejaculates the Holland fisherman. “This is more
money than I ever saw before. I don’t want anything for doing a kind
act.”
“You’ve a wife and children, take it for them and for your expenses
returning to the North, where I wish you to go for me on a special
errand.”
So it is arranged that Haring departs at once for North Holland, taking
orders with him to Dalton to bring the Dover Lass straight to Flushing,
and, not finding Guy and the Esperanza there, to sail the ship at once
to the South Beveland shore and anchor in the Krom Vliet. There will
not be any great risk in this, nearly all the Spanish galleys having
gone to Amsterdam to help the Haarlem leaguer.
The next morning Haring leaves for the North, and Guy and Bodé Volcker
take boat to Flushing, where the Esperanza is lying.
Guy has left some ten men on board this ship, and they are sufficient
to navigate it to Dunquerque, where he takes cargo from Bodé Volcker’s
agents at that place and obtains proper clearance papers to Antwerp.
Setting sail from this port they make Flushing, to find to Chester’s
delight the Dover Lass already there, Haring has traveled so rapidly,
Dalton has obeyed his orders so promptly, and the Dover Lass, the ice
having all melted in Enkhuysen harbor, is so fleet under favorable
breezes.
“By all the mermaids!” cries his first officer, on seeing his captain,
“we thought you dead—drowned at that cursed Diemerdyk fight. This is
glorious news.”
“I’ve got better for you,” laughs Guy.
“What’s that?”
“Money to pay off the crew!” At which the British tars set up a wild
cheer and become very happy indeed.
Then drawing upon Bodé Volcker’s money bags Chester makes settlement
with his mariners.
The next morning taking many of the crew who had gone with him to
Antwerp before, and the Dover Lass accompanying him as far as Krom
Vliet and anchoring there, just off the South Beveland shore, Guy
proceeds to Antwerp, passes the guard boat off Lillo, and hauls up to
the city docks, more impatient to get at Alva’s daughter than Alva’s
treasure.
He knows he must make quick work of this. During his fights and
skirmishes his face has become known to many Spanish soldiers, and
though most of these are up in Holland, a few are here on sick leave.
Fortunately these are mostly confined to bed and chamber, as only the
desperately wounded come from the front, Spain having need of every man
to carry on the siege of Haarlem—but still with ten thousand crowns
upon his head, “The First of the English” is now in fearful jeopardy.
Letting no time pass Chester, disguised as completely as possible as
Captain Andrea Blanco, goes up to the merchant’s house to make
arrangements for unloading his cargo. They are in earnest conversation,
Guy charging Bodé Volcker, who has now gone into this business of
stealing Alva’s treasure with heart and soul, to discover all about the
house of the Spanish woman, Señora Sebastian, when great and sudden joy
comes to his soul.
He hears the voice of the Countess de Pariza in the salesroom just off
the little counting room where he is holding converse with the
merchant. This voice he has always before considered harsh, unpleasant
and uninviting, but now it seems to him as sweet as an angel’s, as it
says: “I have called to price and buy some white French muslin for my
charge, Doña de Alva. You need not measure many yards, the lady
Hermoine soon goes to Spain to enter a religious house.”
“Shall I deliver the goods at the Citadel for your ladyship?” asks the
obsequious clerk.
“No, I’ll take them with me. The weather has been so pleasant that Doña
Hermoine and I are now located for the summer at the country house near
Sandvliet. Be quick, young man, the State barge is waiting.”
These words knock all thought of Alva’s treasure out of Guy’s mind.
“Give me some further details,” whispers the merchant, “about the house
of the Spanish woman.”
“I’ve told you where it is. To-morrow I’ll talk with you. Which is the
quickest way to Sandvliet?”
“The quickest way is on horseback, but it is not the safest.”
“I go the quickest way.”
“Past the sentries of Lillo? You will be questioned! You must have a
passport!” Then the merchant whispers in warning tones: “Are you going
as Captain Andrea Blanco or as Colonel Guido Amati, or as—the other
man?” Bodé Volcker’s face is white as he makes this last remark.
“As—My God! I must go as Colonel Guido Amati!”
“Do you think you’ll pass the fort at Lillo with a passport for Colonel
Guido Amati, who has been marked dead upon the army rolls three or four
months?” says Bodé Volcker, bringing the common sense of the merchant
to bear upon the romance of the sailor. “A year ago you might have
passed Lillo as Captain Guido Amati, but as Colonel Guido Amati, a man
of mark, a man who rode at the head of his regiment, a man who has been
mentioned in general orders as dead—no, no, you’ll throw away your life
and not gain the girl. You’ll throw away the treasure and sacrifice my
life.”
“You’re right,” says Chester moodily, “but see her I must.”
“Then go by boat, that’s your only way,” returns Niklaas.
“Very well, I’ll take the Esperanza’s gig; it is a quick pulling boat,
and I’ll take every care of myself—for her sake most of all,” answers
Chester. “It wouldn’t do for her to again mourn for Guido Amati.
Meantime do what you can up here. I’ll meet you to-morrow morning.”
With these words Captain Andrea Blanco strides out of the counting room
of the merchant Bodé Volcker and going on board the Esperanza gives
himself the appearance of Colonel Guido Amati as much as he can; for
his wounds have made him pale, and desperate exertions and desperate
anxiety have brought lines of care upon his brow.
Notwithstanding this, as his boat, propelled by six stalwart rowers,
catching the ebb tide, goes down the Schelde, there is a gleam of
intense happiness and expectant joy, upon the face of the dashing young
man.
This happiness is softer and more enraptured as with jaunty step and
purple mantle, in satin and silk, and rigged up as cavalier to meet his
lady love, Chester steps out of his boat on the dyke about half a mile
west of Sandvliet, where there is a pretty landing-stage and ornamental
steps running down to the water for lady’s use and a charming walk
shaded by poplars leading up to the exquisite chateau built by my lord
of Alva for his daughter’s summering.
The house though reached by the walk, is situated right upon the dyke
itself, giving it a water view and summer breezes blowing up the
Schelde. One wing of it even juts over the water, a boat could sail
beneath its windows.
The mansion is extensive, consisting of a central portion and two
wings; the one over the water from its luxurious balconies and awnings
seems that portion where the Viceroy’s daughter herself resides; the
other wing, as well as Guy can judge as he approaches it, is devoted to
the uses of the servants and contains the kitchen and other offices of
the house. The main portion is probably used for general reception
purposes. Altogether it is a very handsome and extensive water villa,
built with an exquisite Moorish grace and Orientally luxurious in its
fittings. This can easily be seen from the distance, for there are
blinds on the outside to keep the sun out, and the windows themselves
in some cases are of ornamental glass.
Running along the dyke in front of the house is a beautiful little
garden, the trees, for it is well into May now, covered with early
leaflets in their first green and freshest beauty. Some flowers,
probably raised in hot-beds or green-house, have been planted in its
grass plots.
At the end furthest from the villa is a little summer house covered
with vines and fronting on the water. This catches Guy’s eye as he
looks about, inspecting carefully the house before he makes his
entrance or knocks, calls or claps his hands for servants, after the
manner of that day.
Looking closely at it, Chester discovers within the flutter of a white
gown. Is it the instinct of love that makes his heart beat wilder than
it has ever beat before—save when she was in his arms?
A poplar tree stands by the hedge. Seizing this Guy swings himself
lightly into the garden, and carefully approaches the arbor, to see
therein enrapturing sight.
Hermoine de Alva—her face turned partly from him and looking seaward
down the Schelde, is half reclining upon a low rustic bench made soft
to her by cushions of down and silk, one little hand supporting the
beautiful head, one graceful foot and delicate ankle outstretched, and
all her lovely figure in softest draping white save where upon the
neck, wrists and borders of her garments are trimmings of narrow
black—makes picture upon which his eyes, that have so long been denied
sight of her, could linger in a kind of dreamy rapture.
But Chester is not the man for dreams when his sweetheart is within hug
of him. He only pauses to think how he can avert the shock of letting
her see a dead man live before her.
“She’ll think me a ghost and uncanny,” he meditates; for ghosts,
fairies and the supernatural were very common in those days.
As he stands hesitating the girl picks up a prayer book that is near
her hand and forces herself to read, then sighing puts it down. As she
moves a gleam from her white hand comes to him. It is from the ring he
gave her, and Guy can be silent no more.
“Joy never kills, otherwise I were dead of it now myself,” he thinks;
then says lightly, almost in her ear: “Doña Hermoine, why don’t you cry
me welcome?”
“Holy Virgin! that voice,” falters the girl. “That VOICE!” Starting up
and her eye catching him, she gasps: “Madre mia! Guido! My Guido, who
is dead!” next whispers with white lips: “Your spirit has not come to
reproach me—you cannot do that, when I wed only heaven because you’re
dead!” And her lovely eyes beam with horror of the supernatural.
“Not dead, but on the sick leave! They don’t give sick leave to dead
men.” Then thinking to destroy the supernatural with the commonplace,
Guy suggests: “Are you not going to ask me to dinner?”
“A dinner for a ghost!” This is a wild shrieking gasp from Hermoine’s
pale lips, as seizing her prayer book and holding on high the gilded
cross upon its vellum cover, she begins falteringly: “Exorcizare te—”
But he cries out: “No GHOST! Don’t exorcise me as weird!”
“No ghost? Impossible! I have mourned for you—ever since—the awful
news—of the Battle-on-the-Ice—when that cruel English cut-throat and
his men killed—”
“Not ME! Though they slashed me up a little here and there—a cut upon
the head, and a bullet in the body. I’ll prove I am not dead. Are these
ghost lips? Don’t you remember them?”
As Hermoine half reels Guy gets an arm about her graceful waist and
stops her gasps and sighs as such hysteria should be always stayed in
lovely woman.
Perhaps it is the vivid life that is in his kisses that makes the
girl—though it takes many of them to convince her—suddenly gasp:
“Alive! Yes, yes! you are alive! your heart beats against mine. My
Guido lives!” and bursts out sobbing, as if grief had come to her
instead of joy.
But she has ready and effectual comforter and soon her tears become
smiles, her sighs become love notes, she beams upon the dead that is
alive, like the sun itself, brighter, for the cloud it bursts through.
As for Guy, he makes up for enforced absence and lost time in a way
that makes Miss Alva blush and beam, then blush again and murmur:
“You—you need not prove to me so often that you live. I know your lips
are not ghost lips.” Here she murmurs reproachfully: “And you let me
mourn for you so long?”
“A prisoner—” begins Chester.
“A prisoner!—they take no prisoners!”
“The First of the English does! Besides my wounds,” mutters Guy,
disconcerted.
“Oh, yes, your frightful wounds. I’ll—I’ll be your nurse.”
“Yes, under your hands I think I’ll recover in time,” he says, his face
radiant, then goes excitedly on: “I’ll not get well before—”
“Before what?”
“Before I wed you.”
“Wed me?” And blushes fly over Miss Brunette, even to her ivory neck,
her eyes droop, though there is a joyous light in them.
“Yes, this trip I wed you!” This is a whisper, made almost ferocious by
its determination.
Here Hermoine astounds him, for she answers, her brave eyes looking
into his and her voice as determined as his: “Yes, this trip you
shall!” then falters: “I—I couldn’t bear to suffer as I have done
before. When you go to the front again, I go with you. Colonel Guido
Amati de Medina shall have a wife. But you shall not think of this till
you’re well, and that will be a long time, I’m afraid,” and the girl
looks at a slight scar upon her lover’s forehead as if it were a mortal
hurt.
At this he anathematizes himself as a heartless wretch to let her mourn
for him so long, no matter his duty and his oath to friend, for he sees
in the lovely face the lingering traces of a cruel sorrow.
A minute after his sweetheart gives Guy a start. She suddenly cries:
“Why what a prophet that little De Busaco is! He—he must have second
sight!”
“De Busaco! You have seen him?” mutters the putative Guido Amati
anxiously.
“Yes, he’s in the garrison at Lillo, sent there to recover. Frost got
into the poor little lieutenant’s wounds after the battle on the ice.
Hearing he had seen the last of you, my Guido,” she catches Guy’s hand
at this, as if she feared she would lose him even now, “I sent for him
and deftly inquired—as if with the interest of a passing friend—Oh, I
controlled my feelings well!—how you had passed away. And he told me;
but before he left said, ‘I venture this is not the last you will see
of Colonel Guido Amati.’ ‘Why not?’ I gasped, a wild hope in my heart.
‘Did you not see him fall?’ ‘Yes,’ De Busaco said nonchalantly, and I
thought his manner very heartless then, ‘but my friend, Colonel Guido
Amati, has a cat’s nine lives, and at present he has only sacrificed
one of them.’ Did the lieutenant guess they would spare your life?”
“Perhaps,” answers Guy. “This English cut-throat, as you call him, not
only spared, but saved my life, guarded me, took me to Enkhuysen, and
when I lay there with the fever of my wounds, saw that I was as well
nursed out of it, as if I were his very self.”
“Then he’s not an English cut-throat.”
“No, he’s an English knight, and some day I hope you’ll say he is a
gentleman even worthy of your esteem.”
“And so he is! He saved your life from the knives of these cruel Dutch
freebooters,” says the girl suddenly; then mutters in a horrified way:
“And I induced papa to increase the reward for your savior’s head.
Heaven forgive me!—ten thousand crowns are now offered for the man who
saved your life!”
“Diablo!” replies Guy, not over pleased at what he hears. “The
Englishman is very well able to take care of himself, so we’ll let him
alone and return to Colonel Guido Amati.”
“Apropos of him,” laughs Hermoine, “the ghost asked for dinner, I
believe—Will the spectre have spiritual oysters, hobgoblin turbot and
ragout from the witches’ cauldron!” and the girl who is now a picture
of radiant joy, claps her hands.
“No,” replies Guy, “but the ghost’ll take a giant dinner with
permission of the maiden of the fairy castle, and she may put as many
spirits in the wine as she likes.”
“Then haste, for I’m going to kill the fatted calf for you!” And
Hermoine would seize upon her knight’s hand to lead him to her bower.
But Chester suddenly hesitates and mutters: “The Countess de
Pariza—what will your duenna say!”
“She will say nothing,” remarks Miss de Alva in airy ensouciance. “The
Countess de Pariza will not be here this evening.”
“No? I thought she had the State barge with her.”
“Yes. She’ll keep that in Antwerp over night. She lodges with the
Countess Mansfeld. Since that night—you remember it, the one I
bless—that night you rescued me from the Gueux—the Countess de Pariza
fears the Beggars of the Sea worse than the fiends of the other world,
and though nominally she lives here, she is absent every evening that
she can be. She’ll not return before to-morrow morning.”
“That’s glorious,” laughs Guy, blessing in heart Dirk Duyvel and his
cut-throats, “it’ll save so much trouble; I’ll visit you in the
evenings. The Countess de Pariza has a woman’s tongue.”
“If she has,” cries the girl, “I’ll find a curb for it!” and for one
instant she looks like Alva’s daughter. “But come into the house.
You’re hungry, and with your wounds you must have strengthening food.
Come to supper.”
To this meal Guy, who has a sailor’s if not a ghost’s appetite, suffers
himself to be led; Doña Hermoine taking his arm as if she feared to
lose him.
Within the spacious hall of the beautiful country residence its fair
mistress claps her hands, and the two Moorish girls Guy had seen before
come running to her.
“Alida, have a room prepared for this gentleman, who sups with me,”
orders Hermoine. At which one of the maids, making obeisance before her
mistress, whispers in her ear:
Then Doña de Alva bursts out laughing, but says: “Certainly. He is my
friend, Colonel Guido Amati, whom you must honor as you do me. Señor,
when you return you will find the giant meal you asked for.”
Thereupon Guy, following the Moorish girl, who had brought him the
packet that evening at the Citadel, and who appears to be his
sweetheart’s confidential servant, soon finds himself in the most
luxurious chamber he has ever seen, though curiously masculine in its
fittings, furniture and contents. There are arms upon the wall, men’s
boots are in the dressing-room adjoining, and on the toilet table a
missal beautifully bound with the castle with the three towers, a raven
on each—the arms of Alva; in this is a book-mark curiously worked, and
signed “Thy Hermoine.”
“What masculine creature,” thinks Chester to himself, half jealously,
“makes himself thus at home here?” Turning to the girl who has shown
him hither, and who looks on him with curious and astonished eyes, he
says: “These seem a gentleman’s quarters?”
“Yes! It is the chamber of my lord his Highness of Alva, when he honors
us with his presence,” answers the maid, with a low courtesy, and
leaves Guy gazing about this sanctum of his enemy.
“Egad!” he thinks, “Truly I’m in the Lion’s nest now.” Then looking at
the luxury of the draperies and canopy of the bed he mutters: “A week
ago I slept in Hasselaer’s inn, in Haarlem!” and all the horror of the
famine and death of the leaguered city coming to him—his present luxury
seems almost a dream.
But devoting himself to business, for he is anxious for sight for his
sweetheart once more as well as dinner, the young man brushes from
himself all evidences of his journey, making his ablutions with softer
towels than his stalwart hands have ever clutched before.
Then striding down the great oak staircase into the hall below, he is
ushered by the other Moorish maid into an apartment that will never
leave his memory—perchance not for the impression it first made upon
him, but for what afterwards took place in it.
It is a lofty arched room in the right wing of the mansion, one great
oriel window at its end opening right over the waters of the Schelde,
through which the splash of its soft waves can be heard, for the sashes
are up and awnings extend above to keep out the setting sun. On one
side the wall is broken by three large arches. Heavily curtained with
thickest Flemish tapestry adorned with bullion tassels, they separate
this apartment from another one behind it. Opposite this, facing the
garden, are pretty windows opening on a balcony, which has brilliant
colored awnings over it and seats upon it.
Upon a cushioned lounge within the oriel window, the sun’s setting rays
tinting her dark hair, sits Hermoine. But even as he enters she is up
to meet him, saying: “I’ve made no change in my toilet; I couldn’t bear
to keep you waiting, you—you are so hungry!” then cries out, clapping
hands: “Supper instantly.”
At once the heavy tapestries in two of the arches, drawn up by bullion
cords drape themselves in graceful festoons, showing the dining-room,
in which stands a table covered with snowy linen, decorated by silver
and gold plate, sparkling with Venetian glass, and made pretty by
flowers.
“Colonel Amati, thy arm!” murmurs Hermoine, and putting a white hand
within his, the two go in together to a meal served in a luxury Guy has
never seen before, even at the court of Elizabeth; for there are
strangely curious implements to eat with called forks, of which he does
not know the use, preferring as a polished English gentleman his
fingers and a napkin.
But his hostess insists on showing him how to use these Italian
inventions, and teaches him how to get the instrument into his mouth
without skewering his tongue, over which Guy laughs rather ruefully,
crying: “I pray you, lady Hermoine, don’t make me lose more blood!”
At this she grows a little pale, and looking at him mutters: “Your
wounds, oh yes!—your awful wounds. Eat and grow strong for my sake.”
Then her loving hands compel Guy to make a giant meal, to which he is
nothing loath, as the cuisine is of the finest and the wine of the
rarest Spanish vintages—the Rhine wine cooled with snow and ice—a new
wrinkle in luxury to which the English sailor does the fullest justice.
All this time the girl eats nothing, making her meal off Guy with her
eyes.
“You—you eat nothing, my Hermoine,” whispers the cavalier, becoming
anxious on his side.
“Oh, I’ve grown used to fasting,” she says, “you know I was preparing
myself for convent life. Wouldn’t it have been horrible?” and a
charming moue gives piquancy to the embrio nun.
“You would have entered a convent for my sake?”
“I thought so. There was a great house in Valladolid—that I was to be
the Lady Abbess of—I was to dower it so grandly—”
“You—a lady abbess?”
“Yes. Don’t I look austere?” prattles Miss Happiness. “Perhaps, though,
I would have changed my mind. I was getting tired of the prayer-book
already. But now I think no more of midnight vigils—oh, Guido mio—tell
me it is not a dream.”
“I’ll do more—I’ll prove it!” whispers Guy, and rises from the table.
He looks as if he would like to make love again. And perhaps being very
willing for him to have his way in this matter, the young lady gives a
signal to her two Moorish girls who have waited upon them, as Chester
and Hermoine pass from the dining-room to the other apartment, the
curtains fall behind them, and they are alone.
“Come into the window; we’ll have moonlight later,” remarks the young
lady. And somehow they find themselves side by side looking over the
soft waves of the Schelde, a gentle summer breeze coming in upon them
from the open casement. “Would you like music?” suggests the lady.
“Your voice is enough for me.”
“Oh,” cries Hermoine, “I play the mandolin; I’ve some accomplishments.
Besides I can dance the cachuca and the bolero. To-morrow evening I’ll
have entertainment for thee. My Moorish girls play the harp and guitar,
and I’ll invite De Busaco over.”
“Invite no one, please.”
“Not even little De Busaco, who would not believe you were dead?”
“No.”
“Do you know, perchance, he guesses our secret?”
“Why?”
“When he came to me he brought two letters he had found, having taken
charge of your baggage. He handed them to me, remarking: ‘I think these
may have interest for you.’ You, my Guido, didn’t keep them with you.”
There is reproach in her eyes.
“I kept your letter with me,” answers Guy, with happy inspiration.
“My letters” corrects the girl; “I sent you three.”
“Oh, yes, but I—I call this one your letter, the one that came to me
last, the one that I carried with me to stain with my blood, the one
that sent me to win promotion against the English captain,” and Chester
produces the epistle taken from the dead Guido Amati after the battle
on the ice.
“Yes, the letter for which I cursed myself,” cries Hermoine, “the one I
had supposed had brought you death for love of me; the letter that
asked you to capture that brave Englishman, I’ll not call him cruel
now.” With this the girl sheds tears upon the missive Guy has given to
her, and murmurs: “Tell me all about your adventures when away from
me.”
Thus compelled Chester gives a detailed account of the skirmish on the
ice, from the Spanish standpoint, and finally tells her that he really
thinks one more battle will make him a general; and so goes on weaving
the threads very deftly that Colonel Guido Amati de Medina, all unknown
to himself, is bringing together to cause the extraordinary catastrophe
that will shortly come upon him.
A minute after he says, looking over the Schelde: “Are you not afraid
of visits from these Beggars of the Sea?”
“No,” replies Hermoine, “Every fighter of them has gone to Holland.
Besides, I have eight armed lackeys within the house and stables, four
more as escort of the galley, there is a garrison at Lillo, and half a
company at Sandvliet, just round that point.” Her white arm makes
graceful gesture. “I am safe here from every one but you, my Guido.”
And Guy, looking over the waters of the Schelde now illuminated by the
rising moon, thinks: “Safe from all but me.” For he sees in the Krom
Vliet, just against the South Beveland shore, the masts of the Dover
Lass, and into his head has come a plan by which he will take Hermoine
de Alva at her word and make her his very own.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DAUGHTER’S DOWER.
To make preparations for this Chester’s time is desperately short. He
must advance as rapidly as possible his action as to Alva’s treasure;
besides this he wishes to guard most tenderly the good name of this
woman who proves her love of him with every look of her eyes.
Therefore, after some half hour more of confidences in which the girl
gives him one or two beautiful glimpses of her lovely soul, the
Englishman, fighting with his very self, rises to go, reluctantly,
lingeringly, but still—to go.
“Oh, not so soon,” pleads Hermoine. “You’ve—you’ve been away so long!”
“But I’ll be back to-morrow.”
“At what hour?”
“In the evening.”
“In the evening? Ah! That is many seconds from now.”
“I can’t come before, but I’ll be here as early as possible. For that
you have my word.”
“Where are you stopping?”
“On board the vessel that brought me from the North, the Esperanza.”
“The Esperanza? The fort at Lillo is nearer to me!”
“At Lillo perhaps the commander would think me well enough for duty. I
should have a garrison routine and would not be my own master to come
to see you at my will.”
“Yes, you’re right. My wounded hero, who made that wondrous march over
the drowned lands over there deserves a lazy month or two. All Brabant,
Flanders and Spain rang with the glory of that march.” And the girl
puts her arms about him whispering compliments that would make Guy very
happy did he not know that they belong to the passed away Guido Amati.
Then seeing his determination, she adds: “If you must go I’ll have
three minutes more of you.”
“How?”
“By going to your boat to see you off.”
Putting her hand in his arm she strolls with him down the little path,
the poplars throwing shadows on it here and there. Each time they reach
a shadow they pause for a farewell—and as they near the boat each
farewell grows longer and more drawn out, so it is many minutes before
they reach the last shadowed nook and stand there listening to the
sailors’ voices coming up to them from the landing. The men are making
merry, having brought provisions and wine with them for their stay.
Then the girl suddenly puts her arms about the lost one that has
returned to her and whispers impulsively: “Oh, my Guido, if we never
had to say good-night!”
“That time is coming soon.”
“Soon? Papa doesn’t even know yet.”
“Nevertheless the time is coming soon. I swear to you by this!” And Guy
Chester, leaving Hermoine’s fair cheeks very blushing and her dark eyes
in grandest brunette sparkle, walks down the stairs to the landing
place and gets into his gig, in his heart a great determination to make
good his words.
Curiously his boat does not drive up the Schelde, but turns the other
way, and after a two hours’ hard pull, the tide being against it, makes
the Dover Lass, in the cabin of which Chester has long and careful
converse with Dalton.
The immediate result of this is that the long boat of his vessel is put
overboard fully armed and equipped, and all that night and the
succeeding ones patrols the Schelde in front of Dona Hermoine’s country
house, guarding the slumbers of Alva’s daughter. For Chester has not as
much faith as his sweetheart in the absence of all marauding Gueux, and
has made up his mind that no other pirate shall carry off his treasure.
Then aided by the tide, Guy’s boat drives up the Schelde, getting to
Antwerp docks in time to give him a few hours’ sleep before daybreak.
On the first rise of the sun he is up.
Giving orders to Martin Corker, who is in charge, to hasten the landing
of the cargo, which is mostly light silks prepared purposely for quick
discharge, Chester receives astonishment.
“We’ve got too few hands to do it very quick,” grumbles the boatswain.
“How so? You’ve thirty!”
“Thirty yesterday—but Bodé Volcker, whose directions you told me to
follow, came down before sunset last night and took off twelve men with
their duds and bedding to sleep in the town.”
“All right,” answers the captain, but goes hurriedly up to the house on
the Meir to find the reason of this.
Here getting immediate word with Bodé Volcker, who is awake and in his
counting room, Guy finds that the merchant has entered into this
business of treasure-stealing with true mercantile rapacity.
“I’ve got everything running now,” remarks Niklaas. “Leave the whole
thing to me. You’d better not be known much in the matter. I have
discovered easily enough from people about the docks that old Señora
Sebastian, who is called ‘Dumb Devil’ on account of her infernal temper
and lack of tongue to express it with, keeps a sailors’ lodging house
for her dissipated livelihood, dividing her time between rum and sleep.
Now the shipping of this port has fallen off greatly, owing to the
accursed tenth penny tax.”
“Yes,” answers Guy, “the docks are not half full of vessels. But what
has this to do with our matter?”
“This! As there are few vessels there are few sailors to board, and
Mother Dumb Devil had only two last night, a Norwegian and a Frenchman.
Now she has fourteen, twelve of your men, who occupy the balance of the
house and have gone in there with their duds and bedding, each man of
them carrying a large bed-tick filled with straw.”
“What is your plan?”
“This: we get the Norwegian and the Frenchman drunk—dead drunk; ship
’em drunk on a vessel of mine, and to-morrow morning they wake up upon
the open ocean outside the Schelde bound for the other end of the
world. Then we get Mother Dumb Devil drunk and insensible; fill up the
two now vacant berths in the house with two more of your sailors——you
have very careful men?”
“Yes. They know their lives depend upon their caution.”
“Then there is room for no more boarders and the house is our own for a
few hours, in which we make our examination, and if all is right get
the treasure of Alva; your sailors bringing it out each day, as their
bedding——only the bed-ticks will be filled with doubloons instead of
straw—next a new lot of your men with fresh bedding.”
“This is as good a plan,” answers Guy, considering, “as you could have
hit upon. There is but one serious danger. Is the house watched by some
of Alva’s agents?”
“That I have investigated, and I think no one connected with Alva or
the Spanish government has ever been near the place since it was let to
Señora Sebastian. But,” adds the merchant, rubbing his head, “that is
what frightens me! Do you suppose such an astute man would take no
precautions to inform himself of the safety of his treasure? Mark my
words, there’s something in that Alva’s statue that we don’t know of.”
“If you’re afraid to make the venture, I am not,” says Guy
determinedly. “I’ll take the risk.”
“Well, perhaps it were better you go in first,” returns Bodé Volcker.
“You have the greatest interest in the matter. Then, if it should come
to fighting, you would have a thousand chances to my none.”
So the matter is arranged, and Bodé Volcker does his part of the work
thoroughly. Four hours after this the Norwegian and French sailors are
drunk; the next day they awake tossing upon the open ocean, aboard a
ship bound for the Indies, a cruise that will last three years. At dusk
the merchant comes to Chester, who waits in his counting room, and
whispers: “Mother Dumb Devil is dead drunk also; do your work.”
“Show me the place.” And Guy, taking Corker with him, is led by Niklaas
to a street just on the town side of the Esplanade, where, among
tumble-down dwellings as wretched and dirty as itself, stands the house
of Señora Sebastian. One of Guy’s sailors lets them in, the merchant
not even entering the place, only pointing it out from round the
corner.
“Where is the mistress of the house?”
“Dead drunk upstairs, captain,” whispers the man. “She was raving an
hour ago, but now she’s good for an all night snore—she’s a rum
one—dumb, but snores like old Neptune himself.”
Inspecting the woman, Chester finds the report correct, and leaving a
rum bottle handy to keep her quiet in any event—he comes down stairs
and says hastily “To work.”
With this Guy and Corker enter the cellar and get to business by the
light of a flickering oil lamp.
To Chester’s delight, after taking up the four stones in the center, he
finds a heavy slab, made easy to handle by an iron ring inserted in its
top. But it will not move to their combined strength until they use a
crowbar. A hasty examination discloses that it has evidently been
undisturbed for a year or two, and that time has settled and cemented
it into its place. As they pry it up a little shaft is uncovered with a
ladder leading down it.
This is scarce ten feet in depth, and lowering the flickering lantern,
they see a passage leading from it in the right direction.
“Now,” whispers Guy to Corker, “keep watch here. If you’re attacked
make the best fight you can and warn and save me if possible. If not,
remain exactly as you are.”
“You’d better let me go with you, captain!”
“No, I’ll risk my own life first. I have the drawings, I have the
light, I have the keys.”
First lowering the lantern to the bottom to be sure that there is no
foul air that may bring him death, Chester descends and finds a paved
passageway scarce large enough for two men to pass abreast, with a
vaulted arch of masonry overhead. Striding along this, though his heart
beats faster, his nerves act steadily.
Within two hundred feet from the bottom of the shaft he encounters the
first iron doors. These are immensely strong, and would yield to
nothing save explosion. Inspecting by the lantern’s light the
instructions for the use of the successive keys, though Guy has already
memorized them, he oils the first key with finest olive oil and inserts
it.
The locks have evidently been left in perfect order and secured against
all damp and rust. The key turns readily. Then the second is tried;
again the wards yield; next the third with equal success. Withdrawing
this Chester discovers how beautiful is the mechanism of the Italian,
for the two immense iron doors would swing on their hinges to an
infant’s touch.
So far the dying Paciotto has told him the truth.
He goes on more confidently. The second pair of doors, from the surging
of the waters that he hears faintly above him, he knows is under the
moat itself. These yielding with equal readiness to the talisman he
holds, disclose to Chester the apparatus the engineer had spoken of,
and of which he holds the drawing in his hand, the one regulating the
valves that will deluge him with the waters of the moat if Alva’s
statue is destroyed.
Following the directions on the paper, he disconnects these, shutting
off connection with the moat, and to make things doubly sure wedges
these valves in their places.
Then he passes to the third doors. These are the ones that will open
upon Alva’s treasure house. His heart, which has been regular in its
beats until now, begins to thump in spasms as he uses the keys
carefully—almost lingeringly, as if afraid to see what is within.
Finally the wards yield three times, he presses the doors open, and
holding his lantern in front of him would stride on, but suddenly
stumbles, there is a clanking sound, and he falls groveling in the
midst of bags of gingling coin. Then he holds the lantern up and gasps:
“By heavens, what a miser’s sight,” and laughs, but very softly, as if
he feared the twenty feet of solid rock and the great Bastion of the
Duke that stands above it are as tissue paper and will let forth even
his sighs.
Recovering himself he makes rapid inspection of the treasure,
sufficient to know that there are four or five millions right to his
hand.
Then he goes back and calling Corker to him, the seaman says: “Thing
didn’t work?”
“Yes, it’s all right. Bring the men with you.”
Taking these with him he makes account of the treasure; and there are,
as well as he can see—he may make a mistake of one or two—one hundred
and seventy-nine bags of gold, each sealed with Alva’s arms and labeled
twenty thousand crowns and about four hundred thousand Spanish silver
dollars in some two hundred and fifty sacks. Besides these there is a
strong case that Chester does not open, but guesses it contains jewels,
plate and such pleasant things.
Leaving Corker in charge, he orders that each of the men carry out as
many sacks as possible to the cellar and to continue this work until he
returns. All this time he keeps four men heavily armed on guard at the
entrance, and these have orders to defend the house from any sudden
attack.
Then going along the dark streets to the counting room of Bodé Volcker,
his step exalted and his mind on fire, Chester strides up to the
merchant, who says to him—for he has not been very long upon this
work—“No success—nothing!—a fool’s story!”
“A fool’s story worth five millions!”
“Hel en duivel! Five millions! God bless you, my noble boy. Let us go
and get it at once.”
“No; there’s been no one troubling us,” jeers Guy. “For that reason
it’s dangerous, Bodé Volcker.”
But Bodé Volcker can no more be kept from seeing Alva’s treasure than
he could be kept from running away from it before; and he goes back
with Guy to the house of Mother Dumb Devil.
Here he says: “Leave everything in my charge. I’ll get it out; every
dollar shall be accounted for to you on the honor of a merchant.”
To this Chester answers: “The honor of a merchant is sufficient for me.
But in our freebooter’s way, I have directed Corker to tally every bag
and store every coin on the Esperanza. We’ll divide it at Flushing. But
you get it out. You’re better at this business than I am.”
And in truth Bodé Volcker is, for his whole soul is in the transaction,
while Guy has only half his heart in it, the best half being at
Sandvliet with Alva’s daughter.
So the matter is arranged; the men are to carry out all the gold into
the cellar during this night, then the iron doors in the gallery are to
be closed again, all of them, and during the day Bodé Volcker is to
transfer the treasure done up as sailors’ bedding on board the
Esperanza. This his facilities as merchant permit him to do with little
chance of suspicion. The next night with fresh men they are to bring
out the silver from the vault to the cellar of the house and get it
away in the same manner during the daytime, also the box containing
jewels.
“When we have the gold I think we’ll have the main value of it,” says
Bodé Volcker. “Meantime I’ll commence to put cargo into the Esperanza,
to give commercial reason for the vessel sailing from Antwerp again.”
“You are commercially correct about this,” says Chester. With this he
orders Corker when the gold comes on board to store it under the cabin
in the place where the smuggled arquebuses had been concealed on their
previous visit to Antwerp. Then turning away and looking at his watch
he mutters with a start: “By heaven, eight o’clock! I can’t get through
the gates of the town. I shall break my appointment.”
“Ah! At Sandvliet?” chuckles the merchant to him.
“Yes.”
“I thought so. But I can get you out of the gates now. Spanish troops
no longer guard them. We have our civic guards on duty. Lieutenant
Karloo, at the main port, is a friend of mine. I’ll go with you.”
At the city gate Guy finds very little trouble when vouched for by Bodé
Volcker, as the Spanish garrison has been so reduced in Antwerp by
drafts on it for the war in Holland that it is now only enough to
properly man and guard the Citadel itself. The Fortress dominates the
town and could prevent any rebellion or uprising, but the policing of
the place is left entirely to the burghers themselves.
This also makes it easier, Guy thinks delightedly, to pass the gold
through the gates and load it on his ship; there not being that
discipline among the civic guards as prevails among the veteran
soldiers of Alva. So it is with a light heart that Chester once more
sails down the Schelde for the landing-place at Sandvliet, cogitating:
“Now I’ve handled the daughter’s dower, I’m ready for Miss Hermoine
herself!”
CHAPTER XX.
“PAPA’S COMING! I’LL—I’LL DO IT!”
“It is fully ten o’clock—but better late than never,” thinks Guy—as he
springs on the landing, flies up the stairway, and traverses with hasty
feet the little path at Sandvliet. “Egad! She’s not gone to bed yet,
anyway,” he laughs, noting that the apartments in which Hermoine had
received him before are brilliantly lighted. He sounds the bronze
knocker at the door.
This is instantly opened by Alida, who is apparently waiting. She
whispers hastily: “Her Excelentisima is expecting you.”
“She is alone?”
“Yes, Señor Coronel.”
Drawing aside the draperies of the door Chester steps in to be
enchanted by the beauty that bursts on his eyes.
The room is lighted by hanging lamps of perfumed oil, adorned with
flowers in vases of Venetian glass, but standing with a savage little
pout upon her coral lips is the goddess of this fair domain. She is
robed in lightest evening dress of floating gauzy tissue of palest
amber. This soft floating stuff is thrown about her in great masses,
giving an almost cloud-like effect, from which her round arms and
beautiful bosom and shoulders rise ivory like, gleaming under the
lights as if issuing from some floating summer cloud just tinged by the
sun’s rays. Above the white column of her neck posed in a piquant grace
is her exquisite face, covered by the soft and wavy tresses of her dark
hair, to which flowers give a soft effect, and lighted by indignant
eyes that flash now with brightest brunette gleam. Thus she stands
looking the fairy of a fairy scene.
She has apparently been very eagerly and savagely discontented, for a
little foot that peeps from under a petticoat of Malines’ lace is
beating a drum solo on the polished floor, and her eyes, though
scintillating, are teary as Guy enters. These light up now with radiant
happiness and joyous sparkle, and she is at his side murmuring welcome.
A second after she whispers: “I thought you were never coming. You
could not have been very eager!”
“I had business.”
“Business? What business has a lazy dandy of the army on sick leave?”
and Doña Hermoine puts doubting nose into the air.
“Business getting my fortune in such shape that I can make proper
showing to your father when I demand your hand from him,” answers Guy,
telling for once the truth; but adding another link in that strange
chain which leads up to the wonders Providence holds in her hand for
him.
“Oh, you needn’t have thought of that,” cries the girl. “I have money
enough for both. Do you suppose I marry you for your money, Guido, when
I have princely estates in Italy that are to be all yours, my lord?”
And she courtesies before him, then mutters pleadingly: “You’ve only
kissed me once!”
“How could I when you had your nose in the air?”
“That brought my lips nearer to yours,” she laughs.
But during the evening she has no reason to complain of this neglect
again; for Guy has been gazing on her beauty, that seems to him more
wondrous than ever, and drinks it in as a man does strong wine that
almost makes him lose his head.
“You seem en fête,” he murmurs into the pink ear that is so close to
his lips.
“But only for you; you remember my lord commanded me no guests.”
“And you obeyed me?”
“Yes—are you not to be my lord?”
“You heed my behests as well as you would your father’s?” laughs
Chester.
“Oh, much better! Papa says that I’m his tyrant and the real Viceroy of
the Netherlands, but that isn’t true,” says the girl intensely; then
sighs: “If I were this would be a different land”—next cries out
harshly: “But don’t talk of it. Keep me from brooding over what has
caused me so many tears. Let me only remember we are here
together—happy! And I’m going to make you very happy to-night, my
Guido.”
“Impossible to make me happier than I am,” whispers Chester, looking in
rapture at the beauty he now thinks so nearly is his own.
“Oh yes I can. You don’t know what I’ve prepared for you. It seemed to
me we didn’t entertain you properly last evening. I would have spoken
to the Countess de Pariza had she come to-day, and had rebec players
from Antwerp to give us music floating on the water outside the
windows. That would have been romantic as the troubadours and Venetian
night, would it not, my Guido?”
“That shall be my business next time,” mutters the enraptured Chester.
“But still I’ve done the best I can for you. My Moorish girls shall
play and dance for you later—at present I will amuse you myself. I
feared from your remark last night you thought I had no
accomplishments. Listen!” And despite Guy’s protests that he would
sooner do nothing but make love, his sweetheart, seizing from a near-by
chair a mandolin with which she has apparently been passing the time
until he came, sits down and looking in his face, plays a pretty little
prelude. Then the voice that the Dutch Sea Beggar said was like the
angel’s tone in the organ at Amsterdam, sings for him a Moorish melody,
soft, tropical, languid, with that grace and lightness that only belong
to sunny Italy and Spain. This emphasized and made piquantly charming
by languid yet impassioned glances, puts Guy beside himself, and the
song finishes with a little gasp of surprise; for the last note, though
intended for his ear, is deposited right in the long drooping mustache
of her betrothed, and shortened in a way unknown to scientific music.
“Madre mia!” laughs the girl, “one would think that you were the
composer of this song. You have destroyed my great high note.”
“Let me continue it!” This comes in a harsh, rasping voice from behind
them.
And the two starting up, confront Hermoine’s duenna, the Countess de
Pariza, who stands glaring at them and in defense of outraged etiquette
bursts forth: “I had expected, Doña de Alva, to join you this
afternoon, but was detained by errands in the city. I come to find that
I should not have gone away. I am surprised that one brought up under
my charge should have entertained a cavalier alone.”
“Not when that cavalier is my affianced husband, Colonel Guido Amati.
You saw him before, you remember, at the merchant Bodé Volcker’s. You—”
Just here with rolling eyes and wildest shriek her duenna cries:
“Guido Amati! the man that was killed! Oh heaven, a ghost! Holy Virgin,
save me from the ghost!” and sinks down uttering Latin prayers before
them.
But Hermoine breaks in laughing: “No. Not dead! He needn’t be
exorcised! This is flesh and blood, feel him, feel his lips!”
At this Chester whispers: “No, no!”
“Yes, yes, kiss her hand. She likes the homage of gentlemen; kiss her
hand! I’ll give you permission. I shan’t be jealous, Guido mio.” And
following her directions Guy laughingly places a kiss upon the mature
fingers upraised in prayer.
This touch seems to sooth her, and seeing he is not a ghost, the
Countess de Pariza rises up, becomes a duenna again, and says
haughtily: “Then Colonel Guido Amati not being a ghost, I must request
the gentleman to discontinue his visits here until I have informed my
lord of Alva of his pretensions to your hand.”
“The gentleman will not discontinue his visits to my house!” answers
Hermoine, a defiant light in her eyes.
“You forget you are speaking to your duenna.”
“Remember I am Doña de Alva!”
“Very well, in that case I shall send letter to your father at once.”
“You will make no mention of this to my father. I will tell him in my
own way at my own time.”
“Won’t I!” breaks out the duenna. “Won’t I! Do you think I could bear
your father’s anger?”
“Then take MINE!” cries the girl, and walking up to her duenna, a great
flash in her haughty eyes, she says: “Dare to breathe word of this to
any one until I give you my orders to that effect, and I tell my father
that four years ago, when I was too young for you to think I noticed
the affairs of State, you, for two thousand crowns in hand, gave
warning to young Brederode so that he escaped from Brussels and arrest
and execution!”
“What proofs have you of this?” gasps the Countess.
“Only Brederode’s letter thanking you for giving him warning, and
stating that he had paid you enough and would give you no more. I have
it locked up. Do you suppose that I would have let you stay here by me
unless I knew that I could dominate you when I pleased?” jeers
Hermoine.
“I—I had such need of money,” stammers La Pariza.
“Dost think that will save you from the punishment—you know what my
father decrees to any one assisting an escape—first the rack—and then
the fagots!” This awful doom comes from the girl’s lips cool as from an
iceberg; and gazing at her, Chester knows his betrothed is Alva’s
daughter.
“No—no! Mercy!” sobs the Countess.
“Then down on your knees and swear to me by the cross of Christ that
you will not breathe of my betrothal to living thing. Swear it—down on
your knees and swear it!” cries Hermoine in awful voice.
“I—I swear,” gasps the duenna.
“On your knees and with the cross upon your lips. Down! Swear it by the
Seven Saints of Christendom, by the Twelve Evangelists, by the Four
Apostles, by all the sacraments of the church, by the body of our Lord
to hold, despite anathema and dispensation both—swear!”
And sinking to the floor the Countess de Pariza, affrighted, takes the
oath prescribed by Alva’s daughter, who places the crucifix upon her
lips.
“What need of such long testament?” asks Guy, who has looked upon the
scene astonished, Miss Hermoine, giving him new views of her character.
“Because I don’t trust her,” answers the girl. “It will be cunning
priest that will get her out of that. Break it and your soul flies
straight through purgatory to unending torment, Countess de Pariza.”
“I—I always thought you loved me,” gasps the duenna, rising from her
knees.