CHAPTER I.
ON BOARD MYNHEER'S SHIP.
A convincing proof of my honest and pious intentions is, that notwithstanding I was in great need of money—I hadn't a penny to my name!—it never occurred to me to help myself from the alms-box at the door of the chapel, which, at such seasons like Passion Week, was always well filled.
I had no "motive" to carry the box with me—it had not been defiled by sacrilegious hands.
I still wore the dress in which I had masqueraded as a lictor: the Roman balten, the leathern caliga, the chalizeh sandals with straps, and the ancient Hebrew pallium. Anywhere else in the civilized world a man garbed as I was would have been arrested as a vagabond lunatic; but I was not molested in Stettin.
That city, under Swedish domination, was a free port; the mouth of the Oder was crowded with vessels of all sorts, from all countries. The quay swarmed with negroes, Spaniards, Turks, Chinese—all nationalities, all the costumes of the globe were represented. Consequently no one, however striking may have been his garb, would have attracted special attention. Nor did I, as I passed through the crowd in search of a vessel that was lifting her anchor, preparatory to sailing at once.
Chance led me to a Dutch ship.
The owner of the craft, Mynheer Ruissen, paid no attention to me until after we were out of the harbor, and were scudding before a favorable wind. Then, as he was passing along the deck, his eyes fell on me, where I was sitting near the rail, with my bag by my side.
He stopped in front of me, thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat, and, after a moment's close scrutiny, addressed me in a language I had never heard before. He tried several different tongues—oriental by their sound—with the same result. I could only indicate by shaking my head that I did not understand him. At last he became impatient, and exclaimed in Flemish:
"Potztausend-wetter! What language does this fellow speak, I wonder?"
I understood him then, and told him I could speak Dutch, and that I was not a heathen from the Orient, but a native of Europe, and a Christian like himself.