“Yes! A small sally-port beyond the second bastion.” The liquid voice beside him is nervous and agitated. The waves of the Schelde are foaming against the masonry of the Spaniard.
“That’s it!” cries Chester, and steering the boat with rare precision into the deep moat that surrounds the citadel, which the flood now makes a rushing torrent, they fly past the great somber Bastion of the Duke, and a moment later that named after Alva himself. Here, sheltered to a great extent from the wind behind the massive walls of this stronghold of Spanish power, the boat makes landing at a small sally-port situated on a little artificial island in the middle of the moat, and connected by a light, movable bridge with the main citadel between the huge bastions of Alva and Paciotto, the latter named after the great engineer who planned and built this great frowning pentagon with its five massive redoubts, considered the strongest fortress of its day.
As the boat makes its landing the sentry stationed there challenges, and receives as answer from the Englishman the word of the night. At this the drawbridge is let down and lights from flaming torches flash upon them, causing Chester to discover what darkness has heretofore concealed from him, that the boat he has been piloting all this night is evidently a State galley, whose fittings and awnings are decorated in exquisite [[27]]art and ornamented with Spanish stamped leather bearing the arms of the Viceroy himself. But he has no time to speculate upon this.
“My duenna,” says the lady hurriedly. “We must rouse her for the sake of etiquette, Señor Capitan, we must rouse the Countess de Pariza!”
This is easily done, for the court dame has apparently been reviving for some little time, and a couple of goblets of the same Spanish wine that had cheered the young sailor bring almost immediate speech to the chaperone. She ejaculates, looking round with wild eyes: “Holy Virgin! I am alive. Santa Maria! The citadel of Antwerp. I am saved!”
Then this sentinel of etiquette and punctilio rises and puts a pair of haughty patrician eyes upon the Englishman, and exclaims hurriedly: “Who is this man?”
“The gentleman who has preserved us from the Beggars of the Sea,” answers the young lady of the barge.
On this Chester, not wishing further discussion as to his identity, suddenly offers his arm to the fair one, who is still cloaked and hooded, and who, as the lights have flashed upon her, has drawn over her face a Spanish veil. A moment later Guy feels a little thrill as his offer is accepted, and a tiny hand is slipped within his arm.
Another second and he has assisted her from the boat and is passing with her across the drawbridge, followed by the two attendants supporting the duenna, who is apparently not yet very strong upon her feet, and is in a state of semi-hysterics.
Just as they get to the last of the drawbridge Guy hears a sudden wild shriek behind him, and desperate as is his situation, before the very citadel of Alva, the open gate of which is waiting to engulf him, he cannot refrain from an hilarious chuckle as he discovers that the Spanish duenna has slipped upon the wet drawbridge and is now being pulled half drowned from the waters of the moat. As her attendants somewhat unskillfully assist her, the countess, falling into a wild rage, throws etiquette to the winds and, with chattering teeth, and mouth full of water, stammers that the two attendant hussies shall pay for their awkwardness. [[28]]