“I mean that this is Colonel Guido Amati, the man Hermoine de Alva thinks you are!”
“Good heavens!” says Chester, bending over the dead man.
“I’ve searched his person and taken his valuables; not for myself, but for transmission to his family,” adds the painter; “but this letter concerns you.”
Hastily looking at the document by the light of [[184]]the Northern sun that is sinking in the west, Chester gives a sudden start. It is in the handwriting he knows and loves, and has seen so little of, but does not forget, and reads:
“God bless you, gallant one; you have become a Colonel. That promotion was quick, wasn’t it? That was my doing. A word of advice to you, my hero. Capture or slay the First of the English, and you are sure to be a general; that will bring you to the church door, where Hermoine awaits you.”
“Good God! This is horrible,” mutters Guy. “Sent by the woman I love to kill me. And now she will weep for him.”
“Yes, and the more she weeps for him the dearer she loves you. You’re not dead yet. Oh, wonderful transformation scene. Fancy Hermoine’s eyes when she sees the dead alive. Oh God! if I could look upon the eyes of my love who is over there,” Oliver points toward Haarlem. “Guy, help me to save her.”
A moment after Antony suddenly cries: “Mon Dieu! what’s the matter with you?” for the Englishman is leaning heavily on him, and is muttering: “A—a bullet must have got through my breast-plate!”
Tearing off the steel the painter finds it has, though the wound is not a deep one.
Continued loss of blood through all his violent exertions makes him faint and weak, and Chester is carried upon his ship.