for a few leagues or so, till we can fetch the Texel.”
“Oh dear! oh dear! into the North Sea, did you say?” cried the Count. “How dreadful!”
“Horrible!” exclaimed the Baron.
“Detestable!” cried the Count.
“Well, Mynheers, to please you, remember, seeing that the galiot is likely to make as much leeway as she does headway, we will put into Brill, a town just now on our starboard hand, a short distance up the Maas. Hands about ship!”
The mate, the one-eyed mariner, and the small ship’s boy started up at their Captain’s call. The helm was put down, the jib-sheet let fly, and the galiot, after exhibiting some doubt as to whether she would do as was wished, came slowly round, her head pointing to the eastward.
“Why, what has become of the wind?” asked the Count, his visage brightening.
“The sea is much more quiet than it was, because we have just got under the land. See that bank away to windward, that keeps it off us. We shall soon be running up the Maas.”
In a few minutes the water became perfectly smooth, the Count and Baron recovered their spirits, and in a short time they arrived off a seaport town on the right bank of the Maas.
“There’s nothing very grand to boast of,” observed the Count, as he surveyed it through his binoculars.