A little later the lady, who all this time has been compelled to devote herself to keeping warm by many stampings of tiny feet and clappings of delicate hands, in which she has been assisted by her attendants, suddenly says: “Can you not take a little refreshment, Señor Capitan? Even a glass of wine? Your exertions for my safety have been untiring.”
“For God’s sake don’t take my attention from the boat!” mutters Guy between set teeth. “We’re running a bend of the river. The wind will be on our quarter. It is our lives that I’m fighting for.”
Then he settles himself again to the struggle, for the current and wind are not now exactly together, and it makes his task at the tiller even more difficult.
But after making this bend, which is just before they reach the water front of Antwerp, the wind, broken by the land, becomes less fierce, and the rising tide, which has almost reached its height, grows less violent and rapid.
“Thank God, we’re over the worst of it,” Guy says with a sigh of relief. “Now I’ll thank you for a glass of wine, fair lady; the night is fearfully cold;” this last comes from between chattering teeth.
“Oho!” almost laughs the fair one at his side. “Silk, satin and velvet are not as conducive to comfort, Señor Capitan, as your storm clothes and tarpaulins when you first boarded my barge. It is necessary to suffer in order to be beautiful. Your fine raiment is, I presume, for some fair lady of Antwerp, Capitan mio.”
“Yes, for a very fair one,” mutters Guy, whose boat cloak has blown from his shoulders, and whose lace cuffs have brushed the lady’s wrist, as he holds the silver goblet to his mouth and permits the very finest old Spanish wine that has ever trinkled down his throat [[23]]to revive his circulation and reanimate his chilled form.
The elixir seems to bring his spirits back again, and he laughs.
“Another goblet, please, which I will drink to the fair lady’s health!” And this being given him, Guy says, with sailor audacity and youthful ardor, “To you!” looking with all his eyes at the fair one ministering to him, hoping that their flash will even pierce the darkness. For he has touched the hand that has tendered the goblet, and it is wondrously soft and dainty, and the whole bearing and demeanor of his fair companion is that of bright, vivacious, joyous youth; the youth that age may envy but never simulate; the youth the gods give but once; the youth that even inky darkness cannot hide.
Besides, thrown by a quick lurch of the boat, she has been close against his bosom—once; but in that fleeting touch he has discerned the figure of a Venus and the agile graces of a Hebe.