After which he rose and for a moment stood looking straight out northwards before him. But a few leagues—half a dozen at most—lay between him and Haarlem. The Rhyn as well as the innumerable small polders and lakes had left—after the autumn floods—their usual trail of narrow waterways behind them which, frozen over now, joining, intersecting and rejoining again formed a perfect, uninterrupted road from hence to the northern cities. It had been along these frozen ways that the daring and patriotic citizens of Leyden had half a century ago kept up communication with the outer world during the memorable siege which had lasted throughout the winter, and it was by their help that they were able to defy the mighty investing Spanish army by getting provisions into the beleaguered city.
A young adventurer stood here now calmly measuring in his mind the distance which he would have to traverse in the teeth of a piercing gale and at dead of night in order to satisfy the ambition of a friend. It was not the first time in his hazardous career that he had undertaken such a journey. He was accustomed to take all risks in life with indifference and good humour, the only thing that mattered was the ultimate end: an exciting experience to go through, a goodly competence to earn, a promise to fulfil.
Up above, the waning moon seemed to smile upon his enterprise; she lay radiant and serene on her star-studded canopy of mysterious ethereal indigo. Diogenes looked back on the little hostelry, which lay some little distance up the street at right angles to the river bank. Was it his fancy or one of those many mysterious reflections thrown by the moon? but it certainly seemed to him as if a light still burned in one of the upper windows.
The unpleasant interview with the jongejuffrouw had evidently not weighed his spirits down, for to that distant light he now sent a loud and merry farewell.
Then deliberately facing the bitter blast he struck out boldly along the ice and started on his way.
CHAPTER XIX
IN THE KINGDOM OF THE NIGHT
Heigh-ho! for that run along the ice—a matter of half a dozen leagues or so—at dead of night with a keen north-easterly wind whipping up the blood, and motion—smooth gliding motion—to cause it to glow in every vein.
Heigh-ho! for the joy of living, for the joy in the white, ice-covered world, the joy in the night, and in the moon, and in those distant lights of Leyden which gradually recede and diminish—tiny atoms now in the infinite and mysterious distance!