In making this change he has displaced from his bosom a miniature set in diamonds, a portrait of a girl of wondrous Castilian beauty, upon which he has cast eyes of longing and muttered these curious words: “My only prize from all of Alva’s treasures I captured for my queen—if I could gain the original.”
Altogether the gallant array of Guy Chester makes a sensation on his quarter-deck, even affecting the imperturbable sea robber, Dirk Duyvel, who sits just outside the cabin calmly counting his three hundred florins. This worthy remarks: “Hel en duivel! but she must be a pretty wench!” And his first lieutenant, aye, even the second, venture to crack a joke or two upon his appearance, Dalton remarking: “By the Four Evangelists! This foray means love as well as blood!”
And the second mate, who is hardly more than a [[20]]chunky round-faced boy, gives a wild guffaw as he whispers into his skipper’s ear: “Take me with you, please, Captain Chester, for your cruise on shore. There are other ladies in the boat besides the one for whom you are arrayed!”
“My poor boy, the run on shore would be the death of you,” remarks the captain, then he suddenly strides back into the cabin, muttering to himself: “By the Seven Champions of Christendom, that voice has nearly made me lose my common sense. I was going without any money; that would have been very dangerous.”
With these words he empties into his pocket from one of the lockers of his cabin a small bag of Spanish gold, and thrusts into the other a loose assortment of Spanish florins, Dutch crowns and Netherland stivers. As he turns away, catching view of himself in a small mirror of Venetian glass that is set in the cabin side between the two stern port holes, Guy Chester suddenly ejaculates: “And I was forgetting my boat cloak also. That would have been comfortable in this nor’wester.”
As he speaks he throws over his finery a long ample cloak of English wool, and the next second he is over the side of the ship into the Spanish barge, which, being cleared rapidly of his men, is now cast off from the ship.
At this he, going to the stern, takes the tiller in his hand and cries out in commanding Spanish: “Give way, ye dogs of rowers! The man who straightens his back or misses his stroke until we are at Antwerp dies by my hand.” For he fears that the slightest fault of cadence in the stroke may put the boat broadside to the wind and current, which would be fatal in this chop sea, rapid tide and strong gale.
“You seem to be a seaman as well as a soldier,” remarks the young Spanish lady, by whose side he is now seated.
“Yes, I have done a little of everything in the way of fighting, both by land and sea,” returns Guy, drawing somewhat closer to the alluring voice.
“I shall always look upon you,” murmurs the lady, “as my preserver of this night.”