“My Mina!” shrieks the old man. “My Mina!” wringing his hands in despair. Then he cries: “For what crime?—for what crime do they send my daughter to be disgraced and tortured—what crime?”
“She is the affianced bride of Antony Oliver, the traitor.”
“Oliver, your father’s under-secretary?”
“Yes. It is thought she must have known his sedition. Oliver fled from Brussels yesterday. Get your daughter out of Antwerp. I won’t have a woman, innocent or guilty, so degraded and debased,” goes on Hermoine, almost desperately herself, for the old man is sobbing and wringing his hands, and seems incapable of action.
But this stings the Flemish father into rage. His tears vanish. His eyes blaze. He rises before the [[156]]beautiful daughter of the man who would degrade his child and mutters: “But your father who does this thing, Alva, the tyrant, the coward, the oppressor—”
“You forget, burgher, you are speaking of the Viceroy to the Viceroy’s daughter.” The tone is commanding but sad. “I pardon your treason, for you know not what you say. But do not dare to criticise my father’s policy of State. In that even I do not interfere, though I am sick—sick of the blood, sick of the butcheries each day’s report brings from the army or the execution shambles in the Horse Market. Each day I pray to the Virgin to make my father’s heart more merciful. Each night I pray ‘No more blood.’ God knows I have importuned him to spare, but he will not. He says it is the policy of the government, that he is as merciful as God, the church and his King will permit him to be, and goes on executing. Every time I see a woman in black I fear it is my father’s doings. I am here to save your daughter. Get her away! If you cannot, I WILL.”
Seeing the old man appears so overcome that he can hardly walk, she cries out eagerly, “Get a boat—a ship, quick! It’s the only chance. Get her to some town or country where my father does not rule. Do you suppose he’ll forgive any one connected by love or by blood with this Oliver, who had his private ear, who ate the bread of his household, and who betrayed him? Quick, get your daughter out of Antwerp! Stay, it is better that I do it. I shall be safe, you might be punished for saving your own child. Bring your daughter here. What your trembling limbs refuse to do I’ll do for you.”
Here sudden inspiration seems to come into the old merchant. He sobs: “God bless you! Though you are your father’s daughter—God bless you! I know a man that can do it. There is a ship even now waiting for him.”
“Whom?”
“A debauchee, gambler, blackleg—who’s in the next room. If he’s not too drunk he can get my daughter out of Antwerp. Speak to him, command him, he’ll obey the daughter of Alva. He’s one of your father’s officers—Major Guido Amati.” [[157]]