On the deck of the Andrea Doria Leone della Rota walked backwards and forwards with arms folded and whispered to himself:
"If only he hadn't said it! He'll die and it'll be all my fault. Oh Antonio! Poor Antonio! He predicted this. Me as captain of the Andrea Doria, himself a corpse at the bottom of the sea."
The lieutenant stopped.
"And yet, Leone, will the same fate not befall you yourself perhaps soon, maybe even tomorrow? Who fears death? Death is annihilation. Long live life! Here comes the sun. I can breathe freely again and clouds of blood disappear from before my eyes! I want to toast the morning in the fiery wine of Syracuse, even should it prove to be the last morning I ever see!"
The cabin boy brought a full tumbler of the exquisite wine. Della Rota lifted it towards the blazing solar sphere, emptied it at a single swallow and flung the glass far away from him into the river, putting his foot firmly down on the planking of the deck.
"Captain on board the Andrea Doria," he said, and almost inaudibly, he added: "Captain of the Andrea Doria and Myga, the crown of all the maids of Flanders, mine, all mine!"
V.
Fevered Dreams.
For the third time since the night in which the garrison of Fort Liefkenhoek perceived the exchange of cannon fire between the black galley and the Immaculate Conception and the explosion of that ship, evening fell, a still and unusually warm evening. People who knew about weather were of the opinion that there would be an ample fall of snow before too long and they may well have been right. After the early morning sun had risen brightly in a cloudless sky, it had around midday crept behind heavy grey clouds. These clouds had become more and more closely packed and in the evening had sunk more and more deeply over the town of Antwerp, over land, river and sea.
Once again we find ourselves on the Genoese ship, the Andrea Doria, in the captain's cabin.
The hanging lamp throws its ruddy light over the room, over the weapons therein, the maps on the wall, the floor on which bloody bedclothes lie strewn about, on the bed where Antonio Valani moans and rambles in a raging fever, on Myga van Bergen kneeling where the pillows are at the end of the bed, on lieutenant Leone della Rota who is standing next to where his friend is dying and wild, strange glances cast by the wounded man towards the forcibly taken maid.