"Certainly not: let me attend to that. Moved, say you? Why think you she was moved? What foolish talk is this?"
"Truly by this, my master: she turned away from me, blushed deeply, and, as it seemed to me, there were tears in her eyes."
"Nonsense, Skirmen! you must have mistaken.--Spring forwards, and put that sail to rights!"
Skirmen hastened to obey his master's order, although he could not conceive why he was so singularly abrupt and abstracted.
The young drost heaved a deep sigh, and looked back once more for the light in the turret-window. It was no longer to be seen; and it seemed to him as if, with that distant light, the fair, newly-risen star was also extinguished from his childhood's heaven.
The wind now blew strong, and they already began to perceive lights on the Swedish coast, when suddenly a wild shout was heard on board, and torches flared in the midst of clashing swords and lances. Drost Peter, surprised, sprang from the helm, and saw, with consternation, Sir Thorstenson and Sir Rimaardson engaged in fierce conflict with the thirty lancers from Flynderborg.
Drost Peter threw himself with drawn sword amidst the combatants. "Peace here, in the king's name, or you are dead men!" he commanded, in a voice which, without being alarming, had singular weight and authority. They all paused, and gazed at him. Even the maddened Sir Thorstenson, who had felled one man and wounded another, subdued his rage, and stood quietly.
"Speak! what has happened?" demanded the drost. "Here, I am supreme judge."
"Rebellion--mutiny!" cried Thorstenson: "there lies the ringleader."
"They think that we have arbitrarily compelled the commandant, and that we are leading them into mischief," said Rimaardson.