"How! since I came on board thy ship last night, in a plight so pitiful?"
"St. Olaus bless thee, Master Konrad! Thou hast lain by that gun-port for these eight long weeks!"
"Weeks—weeks!" muttered Konrad, pressing his hands on his temples, and endeavouring in vain to recollect himself.
"Ay, weeks; and a sad time we have had of it, with leeching and lancing, drugging and dosing, plastering and patching. Mass! I thought thou would have slipped thy cables altogether, though under the hands of Maitre Picauet." For Hans had spared no expense, and had brought even the royal physician to see his young charge; and so, thanks to the same skill that brought James VI. into the world, and nearly recovered Darnley from the grave, Konrad, when the delirium left him, began to find himself a new man.
"Eight weeks! I remember me now. Thou hadst landed thy cargo of Norway deals from our old pine-woods of Aggerhuis—hazel cuts and harrowbills"——
"Ay, ay; and had stowed on board my new lading, being crammed to the hatches with tanned leather, earthenware, and Scottish beer, wheat and malt, for which I expect to realize a goodly sum in round dollars among the cities on the Sound, where I would long since have furled my topsails, but for a rascally English pirate that hath cruised off the mouth of the fiord (or frith as the Scots call it), and I dared not put to sea, though ready to sail, with the free cocquet of the queen's conservator in my pouch, and my ship hove short upon her cable; for this is my last venture, and under hatches I carry all that must make or mar for ever the fortune of old Hans Knuber."
"Thou didst tell me some news from old Norway, I now remember, on that night Earl Bothwell's page led me here."
"Why, thou wert like the spectre of a drowned man—St. Erick be with us! But here—drain thy cup of barley ptisan, and I will tell thee more in good time."
Konrad drank the decoction prescribed by the physician, and impatiently said—
"Thou sawest my good friend, the old knight Rosenkrantz, I warrant?"