He paced up and down in the narrow cabin. More than once he brushed against the unfortunate Myga and each time she jerked her arms together and pushed herself nearer to the wall.
"If only I could die," whispered Myga van Bergen. "If only death would come to save me. Let death embrace me as it embraced Jan."
The oil lamp was threatening to go out. Leone della Rota called for another light, more wine. He needed both in this dark night. His soul seemed a wild and desolate place.
VI.
The Black Galley.
On Fort Liefkenhoek the banner embroidered with the lion of Leon and the towers of Castile flutters proudly. The same banner flies over Fort Lillo and all the other forts staring into the jaws of hell on both banks of the Scheldt right up as far as the mighty walls of the citadel in Antwerp.
Sharp eyes keep watch over all these ramparts and walls, and the calls and the answering calls of the sentries never stop by day or by night.
The enemy is also close by and vigilant. He can appear at any moment. Who knows the hour at which he will come?
All around Zeeland's coastline the North Sea surges. It is here, on Tholen, on Schouwen, on North and South Beveland, on Walcheren, that the fearsome men of iron live who were first to swear an oath that they would rather be Turks than Papists and who wear a silver half-moon on their hats and carry in their hearts an all consuming, unquenchable hatred for Spaniards. What children mothers give birth to on these sea-sprayed sand dunes! Protect this land, you towers of Castile, keep good watch over the bastion of Flanders, you lion of Leon. "Better a country spoilt than a country lost" was the opinion of Zeeland sailors who, from the defeated Spaniards of Veere and Leyden, tore the hearts from their chests, bit into them and threw them to their dogs to eat.
"Eat this, bitter though it is!"
On Fort Liefkenhoek, on Fort Lillo, on the Kruisschanze, on Fort Pearl and San Felipe, on Forts Maria, Ferdinand and Isabella the cry goes out: