"Such a fellow is worth his weight in gold," said the Rostocker with a laugh. "Mark! those aristocratic vermin shall now devour each other. A dishonoured and death-doomed knight, without castle and lands, whose honour and name have been scalded off him may be the best king-killer one could have; he, yonder, is practised in the trade! He was in Finnerup barn. I will let him loose in the harbour! I will smuggle him in among our agents--there will soon be troubled waters to fish in. The crowned green-horn shall not have turned his back on us at Sjöberg for nothing. Mark! he shall have other things to think on than keeping his bridal in the summer."
"We are not authorised by the covenant to go so far as that, however, Master Berner," remarked Gullandsfar. "What yon dishonoured knight may have to avenge is his own concern; his and your secret trade concerns not the league; I would rather have nothing to do with that smuggling traffic. When the prosperity of the league, and a great and matchless plan like ours is in question, we should wisely set aside private revenge, and all petty personal views."
"Do you slink? Are you afraid, Master colleague?" growled Berner Kopmand, beginning to talk loud. "Let not that concern you my wise Master Henrik! You need not tell an old reckoner what is small and what is great. I can as well as you make a difference between what I undertake in the Hanse-towns' name, and what I risk in my own. If I reckon wrong, the loss is Berner Kopmand's. I know what that man can stand; and you are right--the covenant hath naught to do with it!"
"If it fails, it may however injure our trade and enterprises in great matters," replied Henrik Gullandsfar in a tone of calm calculation. "Consider the point well, Master Berner! All ports are now open to us; the king is proud and authoritative, but nevertheless he favours us far more than we could expect from his policy. Our 'prentices and agents are protected in the sea-ports--our trade is as free and untaxed here as any where--it hath not struck any one but the king himself that the road to salt and pepper, to ale and German cloth, as we heard from his own lips, is equally broad and convenient for all, and Danish corn and cattle will give a good return, and pay both wages and taxes. St. Nicolas and St. Hermes be thanked! the navigation is ours. They are too dull and lazy to understand their own interests. The peasant is content with small beer, and the citizen with skim milk, and they let us run off with the ale and the cream; but if you make good your threat, secretly or openly, and if anything a little too notorious chances here, in which the Hanse have lot or part, people's eyes may be opened, and our trading dominion is at an end here in the north."
"The eyes which might be most dangerous to us were they wide open, are just those I would have shut," muttered the Rostocker. "Greater service could none do the Hanse in these kingdoms and lands,--but silence! What is that? I heard something move under us. The captives are surely not loose?"
"The captives! Death and misfortune!" exclaimed Henrik. "Have they cast them into the hold? Then perhaps they now know more than any living soul must carry farther."
"It matters not, Master colleague," said the Rostocker with a scornful laugh, "they shall not carry it farther, however, than to the yard-arm! Now doth the sun rise red as pure gold--that sight they shall see for the last time. Ho! steersman!" he shouted, "how far are we?"
"If a breeze springs up, we shall reach Kallebo ere it rings to mass in Copenhagen, Master!" answered a hoarse voice at the helm.
"That's well! Then we will keep mattins and ship's law on our own ground, ere the Bishop takes Lubeck law out of our hands. Up! all hands! Ring the great bell!"
The sound of a brass bell instantly assembled all the seamen upon deck.