“Yes, I must have the word of the night to pass the sentries. I must leave this evening.”
“Of course to be in Middelburg when your commission arrives. I have thought of that and brought it with me.” With this she hands him a little paper.
It reads:
THE WORD IS “SANTA CRUZ.”
COUNTERSIGN “DON FREDRICO.”
As he glances at this, she smiles in his face: “I’ve half a mind not to give it to you—not to let you go. What brought my rash young officer to Antwerp without leave?”
“You.”
“Oh!”
“And for you I’d come again a thousand times. I [[101]]was going to the Drowned Lands duck shooting, when, by the blessing of God, I saved you from the Beggars of the Sea, my own—my prize.” And knowing that every chance of this earth is against his wearing as his bride this sweetheart he has won, Guy’s face is drawn and contorted with the agony of a parting that is to him like death. Sadness is catching as well as love, and the girl gets to sighing and sobbing under his farewells that are so solemn—though she can’t guess why.
But Oliver, with rattling door-latch, cries: “The Countess de Pariza is already in the carriage. Quick!”
Then Guy, seeing his time has come, though his sweetheart would linger longer, and begins to cling to him with little sighs of love, hurriedly assists her to the carriage and puts her in.