XVII
The world was then in the wolf month, which is the month of December. A thin sharp rain was falling like needles upon the sea. The Beggars were cruising in the Zuyderzee. Messire the Admiral summoned by trumpet the captains of houlques and flyboats on board his ship, and with them Ulenspiegel.
“Now,” said the Admiral, addressing himself first of all to Ulenspiegel, “the Prince is minded to recognize thy good devoirs and trusty services, and names thee as captain of the ship La Briele. Herewith I hand thee the commission engrossed upon parchment.”
“All thanks to you, Messire Admiral,” replied Ulenspiegel: “I shall be captain with all my little power, and thus captaining I have great hope, if God help me, to uncaptain Spain from the lands of Flanders and Holland: I mean from the Zuid and the Noord-Neerlande.”
“That is well,” said the admiral. “And now,” he added, speaking to them all, “I will tell you that the folk of Catholic Amsterdam are going to besiege Enckhuyse. They have not yet come out from the Y canal; let us cruise about in front that they may stay inside there and fall on each and all of their ships that may show their tyrannical carcases in the Zuyderzee.”
“We will knock holes in them. Long live the Beggar!”
Ulenspiegel, returned to his ship, called his soldiers and his sailors together on the deck, and told them what the admiral had decided.
They replied:
“We have wings, the which are our sails; skates, which are the keels of our ships; and giant hands, which are the grapples for boarding. Long live the Beggar!”