“Well, since there’s no help for it,” Guy mutters, [[250]]“I suppose I must go in again.” This he does to find everything as before. Returning from his journey under the moat to the vault below the great Bastion of the Duke, bearing in his hand the chest that is presumed to contain jewels, he laughs: “Everything is all right, this is the last of Alva’s nest-egg.”
“You have locked all the iron doors?”
“Yes.”
Then they put the flagstones in place, closing up the entrance to the vault, and bed down the stones of the cellar on top of it; next sweeping the dust over it again and the seamen pocketing for luck money a few stray coins that had fallen out of one of the sacks, the cellar of Señora Sebastian is as they found it. Then Bodé Volcker leaving another bottle of rum by the side of the snoring dumb woman, they shake off the dust of the house with a sigh of relief from their feet.
“You have the clearance papers?” whispers Guy.
“Yes, I’ll get them at my office.”
“Very well, then we’ll hoist sail,” says the Englishman; and taking the case containing the jewels in his own hands, though he has covered it with a cloak, Guy goes on board the Esperanza.
Then his crew make ready to draw out from their moorings and go down the Schelde, while Guy waits impatiently for his clearance papers, for every instant seems an hour of agonized suspense to him.
As he stands gazing eagerly up into the streets of Antwerp, Bodé Volcker makes his appearance, pale, agitated, hurrying as fast as his fat legs can carry his fat body. He comes up the gang plank gasping and holding out to Guy the papers, says: “Captain Andrea Blanco, your clearances.”
“You are going on shore again?”