“True! I have travelled farther than most men, and suffered more,” I replied; “but never so much as I have during the last half-hour.”
He gazed earnestly at me, and then at the house I had just left.
“That is the house of the merchant Buys,” he said, “and you—surely it cannot be that you are Diedrich, of whom my dear friend, Captain Hoogstraaten, has so often told me.”
“I am Diedrich Buys,” I replied.
He held out both hands and shook mine warmly.
“I am Count Van de Burg,” he said, “and you must at once return home with me, and tell me your tale at leisure.”
I accompanied him to his mansion, and on the way asked after Hoogstraaten.
“He lives on his estate outside of Amsterdam,” he returned, “where we will soon visit him, and also see the great chart of his voyages laid down in the Groote Zaal in the Stadhuys of that city.”
The count, I found afterwards, was an enthusiatic patron of oversea-discovery. He was the soul of generosity, and no broken-down sailor or penniless adventurer ever appealed to him for assistance in vain.
I have little more to add. Hoogstraaten heard my account of the disaster with the most profound grief and sorrow.