"You are very brusque, Senyor," said the commander, who was a much younger man than the old warhorse and had only recently arrived in the Netherlands from Castile to take up the post of governor in this fort on the Scheldt.
"Coronel," said Captain Jeronimo, "for many a long year now I have clung to my position on this lump of earth and watched the waves wash over it. You are young, coronel, but your predecessor was also young and a nobleman. He too stood here next to me, in the same place that you yourself are standing now, full of youthful dreams and hopes of victory. Now he lies down there below the waves and the one who was here before him was killed by a bullet near Turnhout—he too dreamed of returning crowned by victory to his castle on the Jarama, back to his young wife—bah! And now I can cast my mind back to the end of the year 1585 when I got back from Madrid—then I too believed in victory and honour in this war. I have ceased to believe in those things and you will as well, mi coronel, if God lets you live."
"You have a morbid imagination, captain! But tell me, you were in Madrid in that ever memorable year?"
"Aye, that I was."
"In that glorious year that the great prince won back Antwerp for us?"
"Yes."
"So you entered the town with Alexander Farnese as a victor? Oh happy man!"
"No," said the old soldier darkly. "I did not figure in the victory procession; I had been entrusted with a different task, a task that made other people in the camp extremely jealous of me. I was the messenger that the brave prince sent to Don Felipe—may God have mercy on his soul—to announce the town's surrender."
"You? You, Captain Jeronimo, were permitted to take such a message to the king? Oh thrice happy man! Please tell us about it as we cannot yet withdraw from manning the walls."
The other officers of the garrison had gradually drawn closer to the captain and the commandant so that now, as attentive listeners, they formed a circle round them. It was only on rare occasions that Jeronimo could be persuaded to hold forth.