But everything is very bright and pleasant now, as Chester makes his exit through the St. Jan’s Gate and returns to Zandvoort, where, signaling his vessel, a boat is sent to him and he is soon on board the Esperanza again, and returning to Flushing there meets the Dover Lass.
“You left every Spaniard of them safe in Ireland?” Guy says to Dalton. [[168]]
“Yes, every mother’s Don of them is safe with the O’Toole. They can speak Irish by this time,” answers his first officer.
Chester is greeted with three ringing cheers by the Dover Lasses—cheers of joy and delight, for their commander has come back with his life—doubtless he has come back with the gold.
“Now for the treasure!” cries Dalton, heartily, but his weather-beaten face grows gloomy as Guy exclaims: “No treasure for the present!”
Likewise the men are disappointed also, for each of them, when he saw his captain alive, expected instantly the twenty promised doubloons in hand.
Failure makes trouble for Guy, who is compelled to sail to England to obtain money to pay his crew and to have the keys made.
In London, though he gets the keys of the Viceroy’s treasure house manufactured by three very cunning locksmiths and has them carefully put away in his strong box on the Dover Lass, the treasure house of his country does not seem to open to him.
He cannot negotiate a loan with bankers and silver-smiths, for he will give no hint of where he expects to find the booty he speaks of, and most of them guess it is the West Indies—a long cruise with great risk of shipwreck and capture.
He cannot get aid from Queen Elizabeth, who claps her hands angrily on her pocket as he petitions for money, and says: “Sir Guy Chester, it is luck that I leave you with your head! Who robbed my arsenals of powder? Who but you and that weazen Burleigh? If those Hollanders were not making it unpleasant for my friend of Alva methinks it would have been high treason.”