Now on the morning of the third day thereafter Messire Worst was uneasy, and looked for a fresh attack. Lamme leaped upon the deck and said to Ulenspiegel:
“Fetch me to this admiral that would not listen to you when you prophesied a frost.”
“Go without any fetching you?” said Ulenspiegel.
Lamme departed, first locking the door of his galley. The admiral was on deck, straining his eyes to see if he did not perceive some movement from the city.
Lamme came up to him.
“Monseigneur Admiral,” said he, “may a humble master cook give you a rede?”
“Speak, my son,” said the admiral.
“Monseigneur,” said Lamme, “the water is thawing in the jugs; the fowl grow soft again; the sausage is laying aside its mildew of hoar frost; the butter becomes unctuous, the oil liquid; the salt is weeping. It will rain before long, and we shall be saved, Monseigneur.”
“Who art thou?” asked Messire Worst.
“I am Lamme Goedzak,” he replied, “the master cook of the ship La Briele. And if all those great savants that boast themselves astronomers read in the stars as true as I read in my sauces, they could tell us that to-night there will be a thaw with a great hubbub of storm and hail: but the thaw will not last.”