“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And you think he is dead?”
“Yes, Your Highness, the Dutch butchered all our wounded.”
“As they always do,” answers Alva. “I’m afraid I taught them that trick. They’re ready students. Is Gomez in waiting?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
And the bluff Sergeant stepping in, salutes with military precision my lord of Alva and gives him information thus:
“Yes, I saw Guido Amati fall. I tried to save him, but slipped and broke my head on the ice in doing it, but by the blessing of God, escaped.”
“You know this man is dead.”
“Yes—ten saints could not have saved him.”
“Speak respectfully of the church! How do you know it?”