And they cruise in the roadstead of Flessingue.
XIII
There once again was Lamme joyous. He was always ready to go on shore, hunting oxen, sheep, and fowl like hares, stags, and ortolans.
And he was not alone in this nourishing hunting. Good was it then to see the huntsmen return, Lamme at their head, dragging the big beasts by the horns, driving the small cattle before them, directing flocks of geese with long wands, and carrying slung from their boathooks hens, pullets, and capons in spite of their struggling.
Then it was revel and feasting on the ships. And Lamme would say: “The fragrance of the sauces mounts up to the very sky, there delighting their worships the angels, which say: ‘’Tis the best part of the meat’.”
While they were cruising there came a fleet of merchantmen from Lisbon, whose commander knew not that Flessingue had fallen into the hands of the Beggars. It is ordered to cast anchor; it is hemmed round. Long live the Beggar! Drums and fifes sound the signal for boarding; the merchants have guns, pikes, hatchets, arquebuses.
Musket balls and cannon balls rain from the ships of the Beggars. Their musketeers, entrenched round about the main mast in their wooden forts, fire with deadly aim, without any danger. The merchants fall like flies.
“To the rescue!” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme and to Nele, “to the rescue! Here be spices, knicknacks, precious dainties, sugar, nutmegs, cloves, ginger, reals, ducats, moutons d’or all bright and shining. There are more than five hundred thousand pieces in coin. The Spaniard will pay the cost of the war. Drink ho! Let us sing the Beggars’ Mass, which is battle!”
And Ulenspiegel and Lamme rushed everywhere like lions. Nele played the fife, sheltered in the wooden castle. The whole of the fleet was taken.