“You will be hanged if you leave the ship.”
Yet again did Lamme try to throw himself down, but an old Beggarman held him back, telling him that the ice was damp and that he would get his feet wet. And Lamme sat down on the deck weeping and crying ever:
“My wife! My wife! Let me go and find my wife!”
“You will see her again,” said Ulenspiegel. “She loves you, but she loves God more.”
“Mad devil-woman that she is!” cried Lamme. “If she loves God more than her husband, why does she show herself to me so sweet and so desirable? And if she loves me, why does she leave me?”
“Can you see clearly to the bottom of a deep well?” demanded Ulenspiegel.
In the meanwhile the followers of Simonen Bol had appeared on the scene with a large force of artillery. They shot at the ship, which promptly repaid them in similar coin. And the bullets broke up the ice all around. And towards evening a warm rain began to fall, and the west wind blew from the Atlantic, and the sea grew angry beneath its covering of ice, and the ice was broken into huge blocks which could be seen rising and falling to hurl themselves one against the other, not without danger to the ship, which, nevertheless, as dawn began to dissipate the clouds of night, opened its sails like a bird of freedom and sailed out towards the open sea.
“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart”
There they were joined by the fleet of Messire de Lumey de la Marche, Admiral of Holland and Zeeland; and on that day the ship of Messire Très-Long captured a vessel from Biscay that carried a cargo of mercury, gunpowder, wine, and spices. And the vessel was cleaned to its marrow, emptied of its men and its booty, even as the bone of an ox is cleaned by the teeth of a lion. And the Beggarmen took La Brièle, a strong naval base, well called the Garden of Liberty.