Then he bursts into a laugh in which Oliver joins, and says more complacently: “But I’ve also got the reputation of being the bravest man in the army. Besides, I am the third cousin of the Duke of Medina Cœli, and, I imagine, entitled to keep my hat on in the presence of Philip II. of Spain.”
“Very well, my grandee,” returns Antony smiling. “Here is the bill the Countess de Pariza has run up against you—two hundred guilders! That’s your half of the affair. If his Highness of Alva hadn’t chanced along I imagine she’d have bought all in Bodé Volcker’s warehouses.”
“A—ah,” sighs Guy, passing over the money, “I’d give everything I have for another tête-à-tête with my—my promised wife,” he struggles with a tear as he thinks of the beautiful being whose love he has captured by a coup de main.
“Your promised wife!” gasps Oliver. “Morbleu! you have been making hay,” next shortly says: “By heaven, if Alva ever puts hand on you and knows this, dread the reckoning, my audacious Englishman. Besides, you’ll have to be quick about this matter if you ever get her!” [[103]]
“Why so?”
“Alva will not remain in the Netherlands much longer. The country is crushed (pacified he calls it), though the embers are smouldering. He’s collecting the tenth penny tax, but not paying the troops. Some of the money he sends to Spain—just enough to keep Philip quiet, but the balance—God knows what he does with it, though I guess it is for transmission to Italy or to Spain, to make him equal in wealth to many a king.”
“By St. George, if I could get my hands on it,” answers the Englishman, the instinct of the sea rover coming up in him. “That would be a fitting dower for his fair daughter.”
“As far as my information goes,” says Oliver, “no living man has put his eyes on where he keeps this treasure, though I have a suspicion. The great statue that he is erecting, the one that will be undraped next week, in the enceinte of the Citadel here, has something peculiar in its dimensions. Its pedestal is enormous. The workmen employed upon its base have been brought from Italy, and are under the direct personal supervision of Paciotto, his engineer. These having finished the pedestal, have all been reshipped, bountifully rewarded, to their native country. Not one has been permitted to remain in the Netherlands. There’s a secret in that statue!”
Further consideration of this is suddenly broken in upon by the entrance of the ex-burgomaster and his daughter. The old gentleman seems pleased.
“You’ll stay and sup with me, gentlemen, I hope,” he remarks. “I am happy to announce that my daughter Mina has been an obedient little girl this afternoon, and sold goods for me in my shop—four hundred guilders worth, to the Countess de Pariza, two hundred paid in cash, something that never happened to me before in my dealings with the nobility. But then,” he chucks Mina under the chin, “my little girl is a very sharp business woman. Some day she’ll be as valuable as her poor mother was.”