"The destination is Flanders, the seat of the present war. I am a soldier. My place is there."
"Aye, aye," he replied. "I know. You have told me. Your service is not with these ships nor their soldiers, but with others--a great army, far north."
"That is it," I said.
"And you will travel all that way--mean to travel--alone!"
"I must," I said, "if I intend to get there. There is no other way."
"Take me with you!" he exclaimed, suddenly, springing impetuously to his feet from the chair in which he sat. "Take me with you! I will be a good companion--amuse you, sing to you, wile away the long hours, stand by your side. If necessary," yet he said this a little slower, and with more hesitation, as I thought, "fight with you."
Now, putting all other objections which rose to my mind away for the moment, this last utterance of his did not recommend him very strongly to me. "Fight for me, indeed!" I thought. "A fine fighter this would be!--a youth who had turned pale at seeing a dead man or two floating by in the water after the battle, or at hearing the shriek of a wounded one as we rowed past him on our way to the Royal Sovereign!"
However, aloud I said:
"Señor Belmonte, I fear it cannot be as you desire. The road will be hard and rough, the journey long; there will be little opportunity for singing and jiggettings. Moreover, death will always be more or less in the air. If, in Spain or France, I am discovered--nay, even suspected of being what I am, an English soldier--'twill be short shrift for me. I shall be deemed a spy, and shot, or hung to the nearest tree. Take, therefore, my counsel at once, and follow it. Go you to England in this ship, as the admiral invites you. That way you will be safe and easy."
"No, no, no," he answered. "I will not; I will not. I will go with you. I like you," he said, with a most friendly glance. "If--if you go alone--if we part here--we shall never meet again. That shall not be. I am resolved. And--and--only let me go, and I will be so good! I promise. Will not sing a note--will--see there!" and, like a petulant boy as he was, he seized his viol d'amore, which hung on a nail in the cabin, and dashed it to the floor, while, a moment later, he would have stamped his foot into it had I not stopped him. "Yes, I will break it all to pieces. Since it offends you, I will never strike another note on it, nor will I ever sing again--not in your hearing, at least--though I have known some who liked well enough to hear me play--and sing, too."