It was brightening to the morning as they came in sight of the high dunes of land that shut off the Northern Sea. Behind them, with the gables of its houses already threatened by the encroaching waves of sand, nestled the little village of Lis-op-Zee. A few fishing-boats were drawn up into a swallow's nest of a harbor, and beyond league on league stretched the desolate dunes, through which the river Lis felt its tortuous way among the sand-hollows to the wider levels of the sea.
Wat and Scarlett, with their attendant, were about to ride directly and without challenge through the street of the village towards the harbor, when a man came staggering out of a narrow entry betwixt two of the taller houses, so suddenly that the horse of the Little Marie almost knocked him down.
It was already the gray light of dawn, and the man, who was clad in swash-buckler array of side-breeches and broad hat, with many swords and pistols a-dangle at his belt, set his hand on his breast tragically and cried, "I thank the saints of the blessed Protestant religion that I have escaped this danger. For if I had been run over by that thing upon the horse there, before the Lord I should never have known what had struck me!"
"Get out of the way!" thundered Scarlett, savagely, for he was in no mood for miscellaneous fooling; "lie down under a bush, man, and learn to take thy liquor quietly."
The man turned instantly with a new swagger in his attitude and a straightening of his shoulders to a sort of tipsy attention. "And who, Sir Broad-Stripe, made you burgomeister of the town of Lis-op-Zee? Or may you by chance be his highness the prince in person, or his high councillor my Lord Barra, that you would drive good, honest gentlemen before you like cattle on the streets of this town?"
"Out, fellow!" shouted Scarlett, furiously, drawing his sword; "leave me to settle with him," he added, over his shoulder. Wat and Marie rode by at the side, but the man still stood and barred Scarlett's path.
Now Jack Scarlett was not exactly, as we have reason to know, a man patient to a fault. So on this occasion he spurred his horse straight at his opponent and spread him instantly abroad in the dust, sprawling flat upon his back on the highway.
"Help! Hallo, Barra's men! Here is a comrade ill-beset!" cried the rascal, without, however, attempting to rise.
And out of the houses on either side there came running a little cloud of men, all armed with swords and pistols hastily snatched, and with their garments in various stages of disarray.
Wat gave one look behind and then turned to his companion, holding his head down the while that the pursuers might not recognize him.