“And are you going too, Captain Jan Dunck?” asked the Baron.
“Certainly, it is my intention,” answered the skipper, and the Count and the Baron, with their valises, got into the boat.
“Look after the vessel,” shouted the skipper to the mate and small ship’s boy, as he stepped into the boat and seated himself in the stern sheets, with the Count on one side and the Baron on the other and Pieter pulling. As there was not a breath of wind the water was perfectly smooth. The Baron’s hunger increased, the Count also had regained his appetite, and they were eager to reach the shore in the hopes of getting a dinner. The skipper said nothing, but looked very glum. At last the island appeared ahead, with a few huts on it and a tiny church in the midst, but it was green and pleasant to look at.
“That does not look like a place where we can get dinner,” observed the Baron, eyeing it doubtfully.
“And he does not intend to give you any dinner either,” whispered the one-eyed mariner, whose good-will the Count and Baron had evidently won. “Take my advice, tell him to go up and obtain provisions, and say that you will eat them on board.”
“What’s that your talking about?” exclaimed the skipper. “Silence there, forward!”
The one-eyed mariner rowed slower and slower, and managed to carry on the conversation alternately with the Count and the Baron. Suddenly the skipper, who had been partly dozing, though he had managed to steer the boat, aroused himself. “Pull faster, Pieter,” he shouted out: “I have heard what you have been talking about, and will pay you off.”
“I was merely giving the gentlemen good advice, Captain,” answered Pieter. “And there’s one thing I have to say to you; if you can get provisions at Marken, you had better do so in a hurry, for there’s a storm brewing, and it will be upon us before long. The mate and the boy won’t be able to manage the galiot alone, and she to a certainty will be wrecked.”
“A storm brewing, is there?” cried the Captain. “Well, then, the sooner we land at Marken the better. Pull away, Pieter, pull away.”
Pieter did pull, and in a short time the beach was reached. An old fisherman, with a pipe in his mouth and a red cap on his head, came down to see what the strangers wanted, as the Count and Baron stepped on shore.