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THE FIRST OF THE ENGLISH

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By ARCHIBALD C. GUNTER.

Uniform with this Volume.

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The First of the English

A NOVEL

BY
ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER
AUTHOR OF ‘MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK’

COPYRIGHT
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited
Broadway, Ludgate Hill
MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK
1895
(All rights reserved.)

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CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

A STRANGE TRIP TO ANTWERP.

BOOK II.

TWIXT LOVE AND WAR.

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BOOK III.

THE DUKE’S UNLUCKY PENNY.

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THE
First of the English.

BOOK I.

A Strange Trip to Antwerp.

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CHAPTER I.

THE FLOOD IN THE SCHELDE.

“First officer, where’s the boatswain?”

“Forward, sir, seeing the best bower cleared,” returns Harry Dalton, the ranking lieutenant of the Dover Lass.

“Very well, pass the word for the boatswain. He has the best nose on board this ship,” shouts Captain Guy Stanhope Chester.

“Aye, aye, sir!”

This being done, the young skipper, for he is hardly twenty-five, shaking the spray and sea water out of his tarpaulin, gropes his way to the binnacle, the lantern of which is shaded, partly to protect it from the weather and partly to prevent its light giving indication of the vessel’s whereabouts through the darkness of the night.

Taking the course of the vessel he glances at the two men lashed by the tiller to prevent their being washed overboard by the waves that have been chasing the ship ever since she left the white cliffs of England, and remarks: “Better cast yourselves loose lads, we are in [[6]]quieter water now. There’s a bit of Flanders between us and the worst of the gale.”

A moment after the boatswain makes his appearance, a weather-beaten old tar of England; one of the new class of deep-water sailors that are being made by Drake and Frobisher in voyages to the Spanish Main and far Pacific. Plucking a grisly lock, this worthy, who would be all sea dog did he not wear a battered, steel breast-plate, salutes his captain, who says:

“How long since we passed Flushing, Martin Corker?”

“About four bells, your honor.”

“Two hours! I make it the same. Could you distinguish the place with your eye, boatswain?” asks Guy, clutching the mizzen rattlings of the Dover Lass, as she lurches before the northwest gale and rising tide.

“Not on this dark night, sir; but I made out the soundings by my lead, the land with my eye, and the slaughter houses on the shore with my nose.”

“So did I,” laughs Captain Chester. “You and I, Martin, have been up the Schelde often enough to nose out the channel on as dark a night as this, though the cursed Spaniards have torn up every buoy on the river.”

Then the young skipper, leading the first officer aside, continues very seriously and with knitted brows: “No chance of our meeting any of Alva’s galleys out in this chop sea on such a night as this.”

“No,” growls Dalton, “these Spanish lubbers are fair weather sailors.”

“Besides, in such a gale,” adds the captain, “the Dover Lass would make a fool of the bravest and biggest Spanish galleon that ever wallowed through the ocean;” and he looks with the pride and love of a sailor at the trim little ship, upon whose quarter-deck he stands, as she dashes through the waves of the Schelde estuary, tossing the water that comes over her bow gracefully into her lee scuppers, with the South Beveland on her lee and Flanders on her weather quarter.

But the night is so inky and the spray so blinding, Guy Chester’s sharp eyes can only discern half of his trim little vessel of about a hundred and thirty-five feet long, and two hundred and fifty tons burden, rigged in [[7]]a fashion peculiar to the times of Queen Elizabeth of England, with three masts, the main and the fore square-rigged, and the mizzen felucca-like, with a long lateen yard, from which would be expanded a fore and aft spanker, were not the vessel under storm canvas.

Below this top-hamper the Dover Lass shows on her decks as pretty a set of snarling teeth as any vessel of her size that sails from the shores of merry England—six long demi-culverins throwing nine-pound balls, on each broadside; four minions on her quarter-deck, three falcons as murdering pieces on her forecastle, and half a dozen serpentines mounted as swivels at convenient places on her bulwarks, which are unusually low for a vessel of that day. In this matter of cabins and bulwarks the Dover Lass is rather an anomaly, carrying no high poop nor forecastle, and consequently able to beat to windward with much greater facility than the ordinary ships of the sixteenth century.

Round the butts of her masts in racks are quantities of cutlasses, boarding pikes and battle axes; the arquebuses and pistols being kept by the armorer in the forecastle or in the captain’s cabin.

Her crew, some hundred and twenty-five of as jovial sea dogs as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship, are out of their hammocks to-night, every man Jack of them; lying in as comfortable places as they can find between the guns on the weather side of the deck and cracking sailor-jokes with each other in a manner unusual to a government cruiser.

Altogether the Dover Lass has the appearance of a man-of-war, though not its absolute discipline; and is evidently one of those vessels fitted out by private individuals to trade if they could, fight if they must, and plunder the “Dons” everywhere and all the time; similar to the ships that, under Drake and Frobisher and old John Hawkins, were a greater terror to the Spaniards than any of the Queen’s vessels themselves.

“This is rather different to a week ago,” mutters the first officer, “when you, Captain Chester, were flaunting it with court beauties at Shene and Windsor.”

“And you were making love to every pretty lass in Harwich,” laughs his superior.

These remarks, though intended to be whispers, are [[8]]really shouted, each man with his mouth at the other’s ear, for the screeching of the wind through the rigging and the smacks of the combing waves as they lash the vessel would almost drown the voice of old Stentor himself.

A moment later the boatswain touches his grisled lock and calls out to the captain: “Hadn’t I better get the second bower clear also?”

“Yes, we may need it with this sea,” assents the captain; while the first officer caustically remarks: “By old Boreas Bill, this is a rip-roarer of a night!”

“Aye, worse on shore than at sea,” answers Guy, bringing his tarpaulin close around him with one hand and with the other trying to keep on his head his sou’ wester, from under which a few Saxon curls blow out in spite of his efforts. All the time the three are stamping savagely on the deck, shaking off the water that comes flying over the rail, and restoring circulations that have been impaired by the searching northwester which has been beating upon them all this awful night.

And it is an awful night; one of those nights that impresses itself upon the memory of suffering mankind by the widows it makes and the orphans it leaves; a night in which the sea drowns the land; a night in which the dykes go down before the dash of the ocean, which, tearing huge sluices in them, rushes through to make the unprotected meadows and growing orchards the beds of roaring torrents and deep salt seas that drown awakened farmers and affrighted peasants with their flying wives and children, in Flanders, Brabant, Zeeland, Friesland, and the islands and polders of both the Hollands; a night that brought up another wail from the Netherlanders, rich and poor, noble and bourgeoisie, who had been undergoing the tortures and burnings and flayings of Philip II. and Alva, his viceroy, for five long years; a night when the long-continued northwest gale blowing in from the German Ocean upon the unprotected dykes of Holland, supported by a tide of wondrous strength and height, sweeps in upon the defenseless Netherlands to remind them of that great flood shuddered at for centuries—that of the first of November, All Saints’ night, of 1570—though this one is [[9]]nearly two years afterwards, in the early spring of 1572. Evidences of the misery of the land soon come out of the darkness of the night. Lights move about hurriedly on the South Beveland shore, and the cries of a hundred drowning peasants come shrieking on the gale.

“By Saint George, there’s a dyke gone!” cries Chester to his lieutenant, then he mutters: “God help the poor wretches, we can’t!” as the ship speeds by, the gale now a little upon her starboard quarter.

A minute later he commands hurriedly: “Call two quartermasters and heave the log.”

This being done, he suddenly mutters: “Ten knots—and the tide four more! Two hours! We must be abeam of the Krom Vliet; the Drowned Lands are on our lee bow,” then cries hurriedly to his lieutenant: “Go forward and see both the anchors are ready. We must bring up under the lee of South Beveland, in the slack water where the tide coming up the East Schelde meets the current of the main channel. If we get into the main river with this wind and tide our anchors will hardly hold us this side the Fort of Lillo, and that means capture and death to every man, Alva’s death—you know what that is!”

To this the lieutenant shortly mutters, “I know!” and goes hurriedly forward, where he can be seen directing the men who have been summoned by the boatswain’s call. Chester, standing beside the tiller, cons the vessel himself, giving his orders to the two helmsmen.

Half a minute later Martin Corker, the boatswain, comes staggering aft over the ship’s slippery deck and hoarsely whispers: “Boats ahead!”

“How do you know? you couldn’t see them to-night.”

“Lights!”

“Ah! the lights of Sandvliet.”

“No, boats! pistols firing—arquebuses! I saw the flashes of their guns three points on the lee bow, in the slack water under the shore of Beveland!”

“Then I can catch these boats,” whispers the captain.

With this the nature of the man comes suddenly out; his wonderful rapidity of thought and action. He cries: [[10]]“Order all hands to stand by to wear ship. Send twenty men aft to handle the lateen sail! See the two anchors stoppered at thirty fathoms! Tell the starboard division to arm themselves with pikes, cutlasses and axes—only steel. I want no noise about this business! Order three men to stand on the weather bow with grappling hooks.”

A minute later he sees the flashes of firearms a cable’s length ahead broad upon his larboard bow.

“Helm a starboard!” he cries to the men at the tiller. “That’s enough; steer small, I tell you. Set the spanker!”

A minute after they are just passing the boats, and nicely calculating for the drift, which is tremendous, he suddenly wears his ship, giving his orders by speaking trumpet. “Hard a starboard—slack away the lee braces. Haul taut the weather fore and main braces!” And as soon as the vessel comes round bracing his fore yards very sharply and jibbing his lateen sail, which, though nearly blown from its bolt ropes, drives the vessel hurriedly into the slack water formed by the current of the East Schelde meeting that rushing in by the main estuary.

The next minute he has ranged up alongside two boats, and his starboard division, taking tow lines in their hands, have sprung into the boats, boarding them and capturing them.

These are soon swinging alongside of his lee quarter, protected from the sea and the wind, while he is dropping anchor in the slack water formed by the South Beveland flats and marshes.

There has apparently been no contest in the boats, as his men have taken their occupants too much by surprise.

A minute later the boatswain clambers back on board the Dover Lass and reports: “We’ve got ’em both!”

“What are they?”

“One’s an enemy and one’s a friend.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Dirk Duyvel and his band of Sea Beggars; and Dirk’s thunderin’ mad and swears he is being badly treated.”

“Who’s the enemy?” [[11]]

“A Spanish pleasure galley or State barge, judgin’ by the fol-de-rols and awnings.”

“Who are on board her?”

“Rowers, who are begging for their lives, and two or three women, all of ’em fainted but one. There was an Italian, Spaniard or something, but Duyvel and his band when they captured the boat tied a rope round him, threw him overboard and towed him, and I guess he’s drowned by this time.”

“Very well, pull the Italian up and bring him on board. Also send Dirk to me.”

A minute later a stalwart-looking Dutch sea-dog comes over the side, stamping his heavy boots and uttering a curse with every stamp.

“Come here, Dirk, what are you growling about?” laughs the young captain.

“What am I growling about? Donder en Bliksem! I’m growling about YOU! What have you come between me and my prize for? Who are you, anyway?”

“You don’t recognize me, Dirk? Come this way.”

The captain throws open the door of his cabin and motions the Dutch seaman in. There is a flickering candle or two and a swinging lamp hanging from the skylight transom that give a subdued and melancholy glow to the scene, though the darkness of the night has been so intense that both the Dutchman and Englishman blink their eyes as they enter.

A second later Dirk cries: “Bij den hemel! I didn’t recognize the voice. It’s Captain Chester, the First of the English!”

This nickname that he gives to Guy is one the Hollanders had bestowed on him upon his first making his appearance among them as secret scout, envoy and general agent of Queen Elizabeth; though England, being nominally at peace with Spain, his sovereign has publicly disavowed the acts of this man who has been risking his life for her interests day by day, and night by night, off the coasts of the Hollands, watching the unequal fight the Netherlanders are making against the power of Philip of Spain, and the frightful cruelties, ravages, burnings, flayings, killings and torturings of Alva, his viceroy. This soubriquet, De Eersteling der Engelschen, the First of the English, has apparently been [[12]]given in the faint hope of his not being the last of the English; that others will come over after him and help them fight for freedom of thought, and that they will be, if not openly protected, at least secretly supported, by the power of the daughter of Henry VIII., whom Philip has sworn to crush, as well as them, in the interests of his religion. For, utterly defeated at Jemmingen, and out-generaled and dispersed at Friesland, their Staatholder and Prince now in exile in Germany, the adherents of William the Silent have no hope, save in the active intervention, or at least covert assistance, of England.

On recognizing the Saxon the face of Dirk Duyvel assumes a sleepy smile, though he mutters savagely: “Captain Chester, your act is not the act of a Beggar of the Sea.”

“Odds, herrings and turbots! You know I am one of you just the same,” laughs the young man, exhibiting a medal which is strung about his neck, from which hang two or three Beggars’ cups in metal, and on which is inscribed: “En tout fidelles au Roy!” and an armed bust of Philip II. of Spain.

“It’s a curious emblem for an English subject to wear,” continues Guy, “but since I joined and became one of you, for the purposes of the one who—who sent me here,” he hesitates a little over his words, “I have acted to you as a brother Gueux, and abided by the principles of the Beggars of the Sea—if they have any. Have they, Dirk?” he jeers. “Answer me, you sea robber. Didn’t you steal your own brother’s vessel last year?”

“Well, there’s two sides to that story, captain,” guffaws the Dutchman. Then he goes on anxiously: “But you’re not going to steal my prize?”

“No, only to help you take care of it. And you need my aid to-night; for in this wind, without me, you would never get back to your vessels. Where are they?”

“About four miles down the East Schelde, round the point.”

“Then your boat would never make them. You would be blown into Sandvliet or past the forts and into Alva’s grip, unless you landed on a dyke and took [[13]]the chance of being shot off-hand by his Spanish mercenaries. You couldn’t anchor your boats here, they’d be swamped; without the lee of my vessel you would be in the arms of the mermaids in ten minutes, or in Alva’s hands in two hours. Which would be worst?”

“I think Alva would be worstest for me and for you! He hates the ‘First of the English’ more as even he does us rebels,” grins the Dutchman. He shivers though, at that name, dreaded by every Netherlander, and more than all by those he had made outlaws, and forced for very livelihood to become, under the name of Gueux (Beggars of the Sea), half way pirates and robbers, though still apostles of freedom under William of Orange.

“Now, what have you captured? Tell me all about it,” breaks in the Englishman, who has bright, flashing steel blue eyes and dancing, gallant, wavy chestnut hair, in strong contrast to the Hollander, who has a quiet, sleepy, soft countenance, embellished with a contented grin—one Dirk Duyvel never changed, whether saying his prayers, looting a ship, or cutting a Spaniard’s throat.

“Well, we drifted down here,” he answers. “The gale wasn’t as high then, or we wouldn’t have come. We saw a dyke burst down this side of Sandvliet and went over to take charge of the farmers’ goods, so if they came to life again we might return em. While doing this we saw a barge put off from a pleasure house that was being washed out, and it looked as if there might be plunder aboard. Well, we followed it. It was trying to get into the river to go to Antwerp, but we shot the sailors, and had just captured the boat and thrown an Italian overboard and were looking for plunder, and finding none, except the women, three of whom fainted when I talked to ’em and told what we were going to do with ’em, when you came alongside; and before I knew it I was down with two of your swash-bucklers on top of me with daggers at my throat, making remarks about my life.”

This dissertation is here interrupted by the entry of the boatswain, who touches his cap and deposits an inanimate and drowned form upon the cabin locker, [[14]]remarking sententiously: “The Italian’s come aboard, captain.”

“Let’s see if we can get life into him.”

But after a short examination Chester makes the sign of the cross and whispers: “He’s past revival. All the leeches, surgeons and blood-letters on earth couldn’t make his heart beat again,” placing his hand upon the man’s bosom.

Even as he says this he suddenly starts and exclaims: “There’s something in the breast of his coat; something sewn in.”

“Duivelsch! Is it money he’s got in his jacket?” screams the Dutch freebooter; then he continues sorrowfully: “And to think that we missed it when we searched his pockets before we threw him overboard. Is it money? If it is, it’s MY money.”

“It isn’t money, its papers,” remarks Chester, cutting away the Italian’s doublet and pulling out a packet carefully wrapped in oiled silk.

“Then if it’s only papers, you can have them,” observes the Netherland Beggar of the Sea generously. The Englishman is examining the documents that are disclosed to him.

A moment more of perusal and Guy appears surprised; then deeply impressed, mutters to himself: “I wonder—can it be?—I can’t make out the accursed Spanish cipher.”

Two minutes more of anxious inspection and a sudden flash comes in his eyes.

He turns to Dirk Duyvel and says shortly: “How much do you want for your capture? All of it! You have given me the papers, now what do you want for the boat?”

“The boat’s a fine boat!”

“But it’s no use to you!”

“And then there’s the three women. I might get a ransom for them.”

“From whom?”

“From their fathers or brothers or lovers; they wouldn’t like to know that they were carried off by the Beggars of the Sea, the champions of freedom,” says Duyvel with a hideous chuckle, “and one of ’em is very beautiful.” [[15]]

“Humph! how could you see this dark night?”

“I couldn’t see, I heard. Her voice is as sweet as the softest stop in the grand organ at Amsterdam, the one they call the ‘angel’s voice.’ ”

“What do you want for the whole lot?” asks the Englishman, trying to appear indifferent, and attempting the tone of a man making a bargain at a haberdasher’s.

“A thousand crowns.”

“Three hundred,” answers Chester, shortly.

“Five hundred crowns, anyway.”

“Three hundred in silver,” and the young captain opens a locker in his cabin and produces a bag of carolus guilders. “Better take this in hand,” he says, “than bargain on the shore, with the chance of being captured and strung up. Three hundred for the whole lot, women, boat, everything, and I take the goods off your hands!”

“What do you want to do with them?”

“That’s my business,” says the Englishman, looking once more over the papers he has taken from the dead Spaniard or Italian, for the dress and appearance of the dead man indicates that he is such. “And I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” continues Guy, “if this matter turns out as it may, I’ll make it two hundred more on my next return from England.”

“Well, the plunder is yours, only count the money down.”

This is soon done, Chester writing a receipt and quittance for the same, which the Dutchman signs. A moment later Captain Guy remarking carelessly: “Duyvel, you had better lie by us in your boat till morning, or you will never outlive this storm,” steps on deck, and taking his first officer aside, says shortly: “You will take command of this vessel, Lieutenant Dalton, until my return.”

“You are going to leave the ship to-night?”

“Yes, some information that I have just received makes it necessary that I go to Antwerp to-night.”

“To Antwerp! Into Alva’s clutches; INTO HIS VERY JAWS?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“In that Spanish barge lying beside us.” [[16]]

“You’ll take some of your men?”

“No.”

“Your life won’t be worth a florin.”

“Oh yes it will. The cowardly rowers down there won’t give me any trouble. You know I learnt the Spanish lingo in Hispaniola, and speak it so well that I almost despise myself for it. I shall go as a Spanish officer, under the name used by me in my former visits to Antwerp, Capitan Guido Amati. I shall pose as the rescuer of that lady in the boat alongside; that is, if things turn out as I expect. Have the cutter off the nearest dyke down the river below Fort Lillo to meet me by to-morrow noon.”

“You are taking your life in your hands. You’re doing more than this, you are throwing it away,” objects the first officer very anxiously.

“I’d do both for my bonny Queen Bess, whose hand I kissed before leaving England,” whispers the young man. “Now I will see my prisoner.”

Seizing a rope he swings himself over the low gunwale and a moment after is standing among his men, who are still on guard in the Spanish pleasure galley—one second later Guy Chester hears the softest, sweetest, most coquettishly alluring voice he has ever heard since his ears opened to the sounds of man—or woman.

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CHAPTER II.

THE LADY OF THE BARGE.

No tones have ever thrilled Guy Chester so before, though in the almost impenetrable gloom of the night its witchery has no assistance from graceful figure, fascinating face, nor flashing eyes. It is the voice alone that charms him. It says: “Señor, are you an officer? Have you authority among these wild men?”

The speaking figure has risen at the commotion made by Chester’s springing into the boat. Perhaps even in the darkness the lady notes the salute from his men by which he is received. The tongue in which the lady [[17]]speaks is Spanish, pure, refined; the exquisite Spanish of the Castilian.

“I have, señorita,” replies Guy, answering in the same language, though his accent and diction are almost barbarous beside her liquid idiom. The sound of the Spanish language seems to reassure the lady, who, stepping from beneath the awning that adorns and protects the stern of the boat, confronts Chester, and in tones that are part pleading and part commanding, says: “Tell me who you are?”

“A captain in Romero’s regiment of Sicilians. Not born in Spain, as you may note by my accent,” returns the young Englishman, adding, “My birthplace was in Hispaniola.”

“Ah! an officer of Spain,” cries the lady joyously; “then your ship is Spanish?”

“Certainly,” returns the Englishman, who, having made up his mind to deceive, does it with full hand and wholesome measure.

“Then,” replies the lady, her voice now growing strangely confident and commanding, “Señor Capitan, you will attend me at once to the city of Antwerp, guarding me on the way.” A moment after she continues: “And I hope you will have those wretched Hollander cut-throats, those insolent Sea Beggars, punished as soon as possible. They have murdered the captain and soldiers of my barge, they have drowned the poor secretary of the Marquis de Cetona, Chiapin Vitelli.”

At the name of Vitelli, Chester gives a sudden start. “Certainly, señorita,” he answers promptly. “Every ruffian of them shall be hanged to the yard-arm as soon as your barge is out of sight.”

“But you must go with me; I have commanded!”

“Your words are my orders,” says Guy gallantly, trying to keep down a smile, as he thinks that his fair captive assumes a strange authority. “The captain of the vessel will attend to the punishment of the marauders after we have left.”

“You will be ready to accompany me soon.” The tone coming to him in the darkness is that of one accustomed to command, though marvelously sweet and winning. [[18]]

“In fifteen minutes,” answers Chester with soldierly promptness; then he continues, a touch of gallantry in his voice: “May I not send you some supper from the vessel? The night is very cold.”

“No, I am well wrapped up. My attendants can chafe my hands, and we have some excellent Spanish wine and other refreshments in the locker of the barge. Only be quick, or we shall not be in Antwerp before morning.”

“As soon as possible I will return.” With these words Guy springs lightly out of the boat and clambers over the gunwale of his own vessel.

Then hurriedly drawing aside his first officer, who has been looking over at this colloquy, he says: “It has all turned out as I wished. Besides, I know a little more. This dead man in the cabin (whom you will throw overboard as soon as possible) is the secretary of that accursed Chiapin Vitelli!”

“The scoundrel who is aiding Alva in his plans against the life of our sovereign!” interjects Dalton.

“Yes. This thing makes it doubly important that I go to Antwerp. I may even stay there some days. Keep the boat off and on near the dyke below Fort Lillo, as I have commanded.”

“You are taking desperate chances,” mutters his subordinate, dissentingly.

“But they are chances I must take. In case anything happens to me, in case I—I do not come back, tell my Queen it was for her sake. Return with the vessel, Dalton, to England and utter to our Sovereign these words: ‘Be more on your guard of Spanish poison or Spanish dagger than ever. It is the last warning you will hear from your devoted liegeman, Guy Stanhope Chester.’ ”

With this the young captain steps into his cabin, and within ten minutes, as he re-opens the door, the dim light displays him as a different man.

No longer the weather-beaten sailor in tarpaulin and sou’wester, but as gay and debonnaire a young gallant as ever flaunted with the court ladies of Hampton, or ruffled it in the tennis courts of Windsor or Westminster.

A light blue velvet cap surmounted by two long [[19]]white plumes fastened by a diamond clasp is on his youthful head; round his neck a long Spanish collar of the lace of Venice; his velvet doublet slashed with silver and satin; his hose and trunks of the finest silk of France; his high Spanish boots of the softest bronze morocco leather. In this gallant garb, with his blue, flashing eyes, and laughing lips and curly hair, Guy Stanhope Chester makes as brave a figure as even Dudley, Earl of Leicester, himself, when he charmed the Queen of England and her maids of honor.

Perhaps even more so, for his face is honest and his smile sincere, though there is a determined expression in his face as he steps out of his cabin and examines carefully the priming of the two long pistols he has in his belt, and thrusts his hand in his bosom to be sure that the long, keen poniard is in its place, and claps his hand on sword hilt to assure himself that his trusty long Toledo cut-and-thrust rapier is right to his hand. For the chances of this visit to the great city of the Netherlands, which Alva holds in his grasp, mean to him the chances of not merely success nor failure, but the chances of life and death. With the caution of common sense, Guy has given himself the appearance of Catholic and Spanish cavalier; he has discarded the medal of the Gueux and wears instead, quite ostentatiously, a rosary of golden beads and ornamented cross.

In making this change he has displaced from his bosom a miniature set in diamonds, a portrait of a girl of wondrous Castilian beauty, upon which he has cast eyes of longing and muttered these curious words: “My only prize from all of Alva’s treasures I captured for my queen—if I could gain the original.”

Altogether the gallant array of Guy Chester makes a sensation on his quarter-deck, even affecting the imperturbable sea robber, Dirk Duyvel, who sits just outside the cabin calmly counting his three hundred florins. This worthy remarks: “Hel en duivel! but she must be a pretty wench!” And his first lieutenant, aye, even the second, venture to crack a joke or two upon his appearance, Dalton remarking: “By the Four Evangelists! This foray means love as well as blood!”

And the second mate, who is hardly more than a [[20]]chunky round-faced boy, gives a wild guffaw as he whispers into his skipper’s ear: “Take me with you, please, Captain Chester, for your cruise on shore. There are other ladies in the boat besides the one for whom you are arrayed!”

“My poor boy, the run on shore would be the death of you,” remarks the captain, then he suddenly strides back into the cabin, muttering to himself: “By the Seven Champions of Christendom, that voice has nearly made me lose my common sense. I was going without any money; that would have been very dangerous.”

With these words he empties into his pocket from one of the lockers of his cabin a small bag of Spanish gold, and thrusts into the other a loose assortment of Spanish florins, Dutch crowns and Netherland stivers. As he turns away, catching view of himself in a small mirror of Venetian glass that is set in the cabin side between the two stern port holes, Guy Chester suddenly ejaculates: “And I was forgetting my boat cloak also. That would have been comfortable in this nor’wester.”

As he speaks he throws over his finery a long ample cloak of English wool, and the next second he is over the side of the ship into the Spanish barge, which, being cleared rapidly of his men, is now cast off from the ship.

At this he, going to the stern, takes the tiller in his hand and cries out in commanding Spanish: “Give way, ye dogs of rowers! The man who straightens his back or misses his stroke until we are at Antwerp dies by my hand.” For he fears that the slightest fault of cadence in the stroke may put the boat broadside to the wind and current, which would be fatal in this chop sea, rapid tide and strong gale.

“You seem to be a seaman as well as a soldier,” remarks the young Spanish lady, by whose side he is now seated.

“Yes, I have done a little of everything in the way of fighting, both by land and sea,” returns Guy, drawing somewhat closer to the alluring voice.

“I shall always look upon you,” murmurs the lady, “as my preserver of this night.”

Then she astounds and almost horrifies him, for she says patronizingly: “This has been a lucky night for [[21]]you. Señor Capitan; for this I will have you made a Colonel!”

This assertion is made by the sweet voice beside him as confidently as if it came from the Queen of Spain herself. Its very assurance sends a cold thrill down the Englishman’s back. “Who the deuce can she be?” he wonders. “I am putting my head into Alva’s very hand in escorting her to Antwerp.”

But to turn back is now impossible. The boat is already in the main current; both wind and tide are now sweeping them to Antwerp on the flood, that bears beside them the bodies of drowned men and cattle, giving evidence of the devastation the ocean is working upon the Netherlands.

“And whom am I to thank for this wondrous promotion?” Guy ventures insinuatingly, for he is now desperately curious to know the name of the lady sitting beside him.

“You may call me Doña Hermoine,” answers the fair one in a tone that indicates that she is sufficiently well known to be recognizable without any further description or attachment. A moment after she speaks to one of her attendants, who is kneeling beside her, chafing her hands, for the night is very cold, saying quietly: “That will do, Alida, try to warm yourself.”

“Yes, Excelentisima,” answers the girl.

This high-sounding title only adds to a curiosity that Chester can gratify no further. He is compelled to devote every faculty of his mind, every muscle of his body, to keeping the boat dead before the wind and current as it flies up the Schelde. A single false movement of the rudder might cause it to broach, and that would be destruction on this wild night.

He can scarce find time to direct the attendants of the lady to place tarpaulins at her back and to protect her as much as possible from the spray that is following them; every other energy is employed in keeping the frail boat safe in her race with the wild waters round them. He has no trouble with the oarsmen; they row as if they knew their lives depended on their toil.

So they fly on.

A dark lowering mass upon his right hand indicates the grim Fort of Lillo. This passed Guy knows he [[22]]is in the very hands of Alva, in the Spanish lines. But they dash ahead, passing ships that have broken from their moorings, and are drifting with the tide; others that have taken refuge in the various estuaries and coves of the Schelde. No boats are out this wild night; the storm has driven everything to shelter. No Spanish galleys patrol the river; but the lights upon the dykes show that the husbandmen are awake, trying to save their live stock and themselves.

A little later the lady, who all this time has been compelled to devote herself to keeping warm by many stampings of tiny feet and clappings of delicate hands, in which she has been assisted by her attendants, suddenly says: “Can you not take a little refreshment, Señor Capitan? Even a glass of wine? Your exertions for my safety have been untiring.”

“For God’s sake don’t take my attention from the boat!” mutters Guy between set teeth. “We’re running a bend of the river. The wind will be on our quarter. It is our lives that I’m fighting for.”

Then he settles himself again to the struggle, for the current and wind are not now exactly together, and it makes his task at the tiller even more difficult.

But after making this bend, which is just before they reach the water front of Antwerp, the wind, broken by the land, becomes less fierce, and the rising tide, which has almost reached its height, grows less violent and rapid.

“Thank God, we’re over the worst of it,” Guy says with a sigh of relief. “Now I’ll thank you for a glass of wine, fair lady; the night is fearfully cold;” this last comes from between chattering teeth.

“Oho!” almost laughs the fair one at his side. “Silk, satin and velvet are not as conducive to comfort, Señor Capitan, as your storm clothes and tarpaulins when you first boarded my barge. It is necessary to suffer in order to be beautiful. Your fine raiment is, I presume, for some fair lady of Antwerp, Capitan mio.”

“Yes, for a very fair one,” mutters Guy, whose boat cloak has blown from his shoulders, and whose lace cuffs have brushed the lady’s wrist, as he holds the silver goblet to his mouth and permits the very finest old Spanish wine that has ever trinkled down his throat [[23]]to revive his circulation and reanimate his chilled form.

The elixir seems to bring his spirits back again, and he laughs.

“Another goblet, please, which I will drink to the fair lady’s health!” And this being given him, Guy says, with sailor audacity and youthful ardor, “To you!” looking with all his eyes at the fair one ministering to him, hoping that their flash will even pierce the darkness. For he has touched the hand that has tendered the goblet, and it is wondrously soft and dainty, and the whole bearing and demeanor of his fair companion is that of bright, vivacious, joyous youth; the youth that age may envy but never simulate; the youth the gods give but once; the youth that even inky darkness cannot hide.

Besides, thrown by a quick lurch of the boat, she has been close against his bosom—once; but in that fleeting touch he has discerned the figure of a Venus and the agile graces of a Hebe.

“Who in the name of all the saints can she be?” he wonders.

At his audacious toast the lady draws herself away quite hurriedly, with a subdued ejaculation, partly of surprise, partly of hauteur. A moment after she laughs the laugh of youth, enchanting, bewitching; and remarks: “Such toasts will draw upon you the wrath of my duenna.”

“Your duenna! She is not here!”

“Oh, yes. She has been present during our whole journey. My awful duenna lies on the seat immediately in front of you. The smell of powder always makes the Countess de Pariza faint. She always becomes insensible when her ward is in greatest danger. At the first fire by the Beggars of the Sea she fainted comfortably away, and has been insensible ever since. When we arrive at Antwerp she will probably have her sharp eyes open.”

“Then before they do open tell me about yourself,” whispers Guy gallantly, for he can now devote a little of his time to the lady, into whose face he would look with admiring eyes did the darkness permit.

“First tell me about yourself,” she answers a little hurriedly, a tone of interest in her voice that pleases [[24]]the young gentleman. “The more I know about you the better I can aid you to become a colonel. What is your name?”

“Call me Captain Guido,” murmurs Chester in his tenderest voice.

“No other name?”

“I cannot give you my other name. I am absent from my regiment without leave.”

“Then it will be very difficult to promote you,” laughs the lady. Next she says: “But since you will not trust me with your name, tell me something about your former life.”

This Guy does, inventing a story of birth in Hispaniola, various combats by land and sea for the glory of the flag of Spain in Italy and the Netherlands, giving the lady beside him an idea that he is devoted to the Spanish cause, body and soul, a grand hater of all enemies of Mother Church, and weaving about himself a web of romance and a tissue of falsehoods that some day may rise up to strike him down; for his fair companion thinks him a true soldier of Philip of Spain and his viceroy, Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva and Huesca.

“Ah!” she murmurs, “a gallant soldier. I must make you a colonel!”

“And the full name of my benefactress?”

Perchance she would answer this; but at this moment the lights of Antwerp come into view. The whole city’s front is illuminated by moving lanterns, vessels are being transported to safe anchorages; the immense shipping of the port is on the alert this night to save themselves from the flood. The merchants of this, the richest city in all Europe, are busy on the quays trying to preserve the merchandise of the Indies and the produce of Northern Europe from damage and wreck from the rising tide that is sweeping over the half-submerged quays and docks of this great emporium of sixteenth century commerce.

“Where will you land?” says Guy hurriedly.

Her answer is such that it almost makes the strong man beside her tremble. She says nonchalantly: “I think you had better take me to the Citadel.”

“The Cit—a—del,” stammers Guy. [[25]]

“Yes, Sancho d’Avila, its governor, will be proud to make me welcome to-night.”

“You can pass the sentries? You know the passwords of the night?” mutters Chester, feeling himself growing cold at the thought of entering Alva’s very garrison.

“Certainly. They sent me the words of to-night.”

“Give them to me, please, so that I may pass you through the guard.”

“That of to-night,” she says, “is Jemmingen.”

“And the countersign?”

“Santa Maria de la Cruz. You may need it, being an officer without leave,” she whispers; then adds with a slight laugh, “I have, perhaps, saved you from arrest. That is a little earnest of my gratitude.”

They are now speeding past the main town. The English quay is already behind them, and they are opposite the great middle dock, the huge warehouses of which are all alight, while gangs of men with waving torches are on the adjacent wharves and ships, trying to moor the vessels safe from the rushing flood and to salvage their cargoes, many of which are already half unloaded. A few Spanish war galleys are in motion, their slaves toiling at their immense oars towing to places of more secure anchorage some of the sailing galleons, now helpless in this heavy gale.

Above all this turmoil and commotion the shouts of sailors, the curses of captains, the screams of the galley slaves under the lash, the flashing lights of the town and harbor, for all Antwerp is up this night, come the silvery chimes of the grand cathedral, whose tower sounds the quarter of the hour before midnight.

As they pass they are hailed by a patrol boat, but giving the word of the night, Chester steers his barge upon its course unimpeded and unstayed.

So they fly past the city proper, skirting a further line of wooden wharves and quays, behind which can be seen the city walls and gates—not as strongly built, nor as elaborately fortified as those protecting the land side of the town, but still garrisoned and guarded, and their Spanish sentries on the alert, for this night of storm and flood has roused not only the burghers of Antwerp to save their wares and chattels, but the Spanish [[26]]garrison of the place, to see that no outbreak occurs during this commotion produced by wind and tide.

A few moments after, beyond the Esplanade, or parade ground, that separates the citadel from the town, can be seen the flickering lights of the two river bastions of the vast fortification built by Alva, not to protect, but to dominate and crush this great commercial city which is now within his hands.

Gazing up the flood, Chester’s quick seaman’s eye discovers the danger of approaching the massive walls that line the moat. With the tide running as it does, and the wind blowing as it blows, their boat will be smashed like an eggshell against the stonework. He speaks hurriedly: “Is there not some other watergate? If I try to make the landing on this side it is death. Speak quick, for God’s sake—answer me!”

“Yes! A small sally-port beyond the second bastion.” The liquid voice beside him is nervous and agitated. The waves of the Schelde are foaming against the masonry of the Spaniard.

“That’s it!” cries Chester, and steering the boat with rare precision into the deep moat that surrounds the citadel, which the flood now makes a rushing torrent, they fly past the great somber Bastion of the Duke, and a moment later that named after Alva himself. Here, sheltered to a great extent from the wind behind the massive walls of this stronghold of Spanish power, the boat makes landing at a small sally-port situated on a little artificial island in the middle of the moat, and connected by a light, movable bridge with the main citadel between the huge bastions of Alva and Paciotto, the latter named after the great engineer who planned and built this great frowning pentagon with its five massive redoubts, considered the strongest fortress of its day.

As the boat makes its landing the sentry stationed there challenges, and receives as answer from the Englishman the word of the night. At this the drawbridge is let down and lights from flaming torches flash upon them, causing Chester to discover what darkness has heretofore concealed from him, that the boat he has been piloting all this night is evidently a State galley, whose fittings and awnings are decorated in exquisite [[27]]art and ornamented with Spanish stamped leather bearing the arms of the Viceroy himself. But he has no time to speculate upon this.

“My duenna,” says the lady hurriedly. “We must rouse her for the sake of etiquette, Señor Capitan, we must rouse the Countess de Pariza!”

This is easily done, for the court dame has apparently been reviving for some little time, and a couple of goblets of the same Spanish wine that had cheered the young sailor bring almost immediate speech to the chaperone. She ejaculates, looking round with wild eyes: “Holy Virgin! I am alive. Santa Maria! The citadel of Antwerp. I am saved!”

Then this sentinel of etiquette and punctilio rises and puts a pair of haughty patrician eyes upon the Englishman, and exclaims hurriedly: “Who is this man?”

“The gentleman who has preserved us from the Beggars of the Sea,” answers the young lady of the barge.

On this Chester, not wishing further discussion as to his identity, suddenly offers his arm to the fair one, who is still cloaked and hooded, and who, as the lights have flashed upon her, has drawn over her face a Spanish veil. A moment later Guy feels a little thrill as his offer is accepted, and a tiny hand is slipped within his arm.

Another second and he has assisted her from the boat and is passing with her across the drawbridge, followed by the two attendants supporting the duenna, who is apparently not yet very strong upon her feet, and is in a state of semi-hysterics.

Just as they get to the last of the drawbridge Guy hears a sudden wild shriek behind him, and desperate as is his situation, before the very citadel of Alva, the open gate of which is waiting to engulf him, he cannot refrain from an hilarious chuckle as he discovers that the Spanish duenna has slipped upon the wet drawbridge and is now being pulled half drowned from the waters of the moat. As her attendants somewhat unskillfully assist her, the countess, falling into a wild rage, throws etiquette to the winds and, with chattering teeth, and mouth full of water, stammers that the two attendant hussies shall pay for their awkwardness. [[28]]

But Chester’s laugh dies away as the sentries at the gate bar their passage by crossed pikes, and their ensign says hoarsely: “The countersign, señor!”

“Santa Maria de la Cruz” whispers Guy.

The pikes drop as the officer waves his sword, and they step past him through the heavy Gothic archway. At this moment a light flashing from a flambeau stuck into a niche in the heavy masonry falls upon the lady, outlining her figure more strongly. Catching sight of this the Spanish officer doffs his steel cap, and bowing to the very ground, says: “Had I known it was you, Excelentisima, my challenge would not have been so peremptory!”

“You but did your duty, señor,” says the unknown. A second later she has left Guy’s arm and having taken the young officer aside, who stands before her with uncovered bended head, is whispering something to him in Spanish very rapidly.

A portion of the ensign’s answer comes to Guy’s ear: “No, Excelentisima, he has not arrived from Brussels.”

“Then papa will not be anxious for me this night,” says the lady quickly. Retaking Chester’s arm she says to the young officer: “You will attend us to the quarters of the Countess of Mansfeld.”

A moment later, preceded by the Spanish ensign, they pass through the gateway to the main parade ground of the Citadel, and passing between piles of cannon balls and all the vast implements of attack and defense of the great fortress, move towards what are apparently the officers’ quarters. From the windows of one of these, evidently much larger and more commodious and elegant than the rest, come the lights of festival and the music of the dance. Situated immediately in the rear of the bastion of Paciotto, the distance to this is quite short, and Guy has little chance of conversation with his companion, being compelled to speed by the storm, which is still cold and biting, and causes the lady to hug her wraps very tightly about her.

They enter at a little side door of the house, a man servant in gorgeous livery receiving them and immediately bowing to the earth.

“The countess expected me?” remarks Guy’s charge hurriedly. [[29]]

“Yes, Excelentisima, the fête of this evening is in your honor. You have been detained? It is now near midnight,” answers the servitor, again bowing.

Any reply the lady might make to this is stopped by the entry of her dripping duenna, who says querulously: “What are you standing here for, Doña Hermoine? You are keeping the Countess de Mansfeld waiting upstairs and me dripping with water and chilled to the bone down here.” Then she cries: “Up, hussies, and help me change my raiment!” This last is emphasized by a fearful chatter of her teeth and a ferocious wave of her hand to the attendants, who scurry past the young Englishman and his immediate charge.

Under the lights of the hall Guy notes that the maid servants are young girls of lithe figures, pale olive complexions, and Moorish features, perhaps slaves, as was common in Spain in those days. A moment after these proceed up a little stairway with the Countess de Pariza, all punctilio having apparently been entirely washed out of this dragon of etiquette by the salt water of the Schelde, for she leaves Guy standing with her charge without further remark.

Then he turns his eyes on his companion, hoping her face will now be visible, but the heavy lace veil still guards her countenance, and her wraps are still drawn tightly about her, giving outline to an apparently exquisite figure beneath. While noting this the young Englishman also observes that the lady’s mantle is of the very finest royal sable, and fastened by jeweled ornaments of exceeding value.

“Had Dirk Duyvel known this,” cogitates Guy, smiling, “it would have taken more than three hundred Carolus guilders to have bought that cloak alone!”

But introspection is cut short; the sweet voice, even more beautiful now, mixed with the cadence of the music of lutes and stringed instruments from the adjoining part of the mansion, says: “My duenna has apparently forgotten hospitality, but I have not.” Then she commands the servitor: “Show Captain Guido at once to a refreshment room. Not the one of the fête, as he is evidently not arrayed for festivity.”

She laughs a little, and Chester can see a roguish flash in eyes too brilliant to be entirely shaded by the [[30]]lace, as she glances at his long cloak that is draped around him, and murmurs: “Accept my hospitality; I have a missive to give you.”

Then with light graceful movement she sweeps up the stairs and is gone, Guy thinking complacently: “She does not guess my brave array; I have a surprise in store for this lady.”

“This way, Señor Capitan,” murmurs the soft-voiced flunkey, and the Englishman is shown into a private reception room, the regal luxury of which astounds him, for its tapestried walls and inlaid Flemish furniture excel those of his own Queen at Hampton Court and Westminster. Here in a few minutes is placed before him as dainty a repast as ever hungry sailor did justice to. The table is covered with snowy linen, massive silver and fairy Venetian glass, and the viands are oysters from the Schelde, cold partridge, a delicate salad of fresh lettuce with just a suspicion of garlic, and a bottle of the royal wine of Xeres itself.

“Egad, this costume à la Leicester will make my lady open her bright eyes,” thinks Guy, as he throws off his long boat cloak and displays himself in the gallant attire that he has assumed before leaving the ship. Though his handsome morocco boots have suffered somewhat from the sea water, the rest of his costume has been pretty well protected.

Altogether Master Guy Stanhope Chester is very well pleased with himself, as he sits down and makes short work of the repast in front of him, pouring down the wine of Xeres into his benumbed frame from a huge silver drinking beaker, and finding himself silently and deftly waited upon by the man servant. Thinking to discover more of the lady he has rescued, Chester suggests to the lackey, “A fine fête your mistress gives this night!”

“Yes!” answers the servitor, proud of the grandeur of his house. “We have for the entertainment of our guests, rederykers from Ghent who will give us declamation and farce, two gipsy girls imported from Andalusia, our own court fool to make us merry, also the daughter of the ex-burgomaster, who will dance for us in her father’s highest-priced silks. I shall contrive to get into the hall to see her prance; the Flemish wench has very [[31]]pretty ankles, and the airs of a countess,” guffaws the fellow.

But he says naught of the lady of the barge, and, the meal being finished, the table is cleared by several flunkies in gorgeous liveries, the resources of the house being apparently princely.

“Odds doubloons!” soliloquizes the young man, watching the last of the lackeys disappear. “The Countess de Mansfeld’s hospitality is very taking!”

Then a sudden coldness flies through his veins, in spite of the generous wine, as he remembers that he is eating the salt of the Spaniard in the Citadel of Antwerp.

But now suddenly the cold jumps from his body; he springs up with a start, his eyes gazing for one moment in rapture and admiration, and the next in a kind of dazed surprise, his hand seeking his breast feeling something beneath his satin doublet as if to be sure that it is really there.

For a girlish form of wondrous beauty and grace, with the fair skin and deep, lustrous, languid, but vivacious eyes, peculiar to the purest blood and highest loveliness of Castile, arrayed in evening dress, of velvet court train and shimmering silk and lace stomacher, that shows ivory shoulders and arms, stands before him, and the soft voice that has charmed him all this night in a mixture of coquetry and shyness says: “I thought you might like to see the face of her whom to-night you saved from the Dutch pirates!” Then she laughs lightly and murmurs: “If they had only known who I was I suppose the Flemish outlaws would have cut my throat,” giving a little gesture across the white ivory column that supports her lovely head, “before even you could have recaptured me.”

“Who under heaven can she be?” gasps Guy to himself, clutching again at his bosom. “She is the lady of the miniature, but who—WHO?”

But surprise and admiration are not all on his side.

As he rises the lady standing before him sees a gallant, well-knit figure of six feet in height, stalwart shoulders, strong arms, active, lithe body; above all this a face of manly determination, bronzed by weather, [[32]]giving almost the appearance of a brunette to a fair Saxon cheek, though this is contradicted by light chestnut hair, blue, but determined eyes, and a fair drooping mustache, which conceals a mouth remarkable for its firmness. Altogether a manly man—one fitted to make a woman’s heart beat a thousand to the minute; one fitted to love like a troubadour and fight like a paladin for what he wanted in this world, and standing a very good chance to get it; one who, at all events, for this evening, makes the blood of the lady who faces him rush very warmly through her veins, and brings even a greater brightness to her eyes, though these were bright enough before.

Not that she has never seen handsome men, for most of the Spanish chivalry of her age have bowed before her. But this new type, this Anglo-Saxon manliness, this wealth of brawn, these great big honest English eyes, this boy’s forehead and man’s face, make her heart beat a little differently than ever dark-eyed Spanish grandee or soft mustachioed Italian cavalier or knight of France or stolid Netherland noble had made it beat before.

The same motive seems to actuate them both—involuntarily their hands clasp.

But astonishment is too great in Chester—he forgets the Spanish salutation, and the lady, laughing lightly, draws her hand away, murmuring: “No kiss? You—you slight me!”

“Slight you! Is that a slight?” And in a second the lady utters a faint cry of astonishment, perhaps even of terror, for Guy Chester, forgetting the Spanish form of salutation, has given her a good, whole-souled honest English kiss, such as the son of the squire was wont to bestow on the fair lips of maids as they stood under the mistletoe bough at Christmas tide.

“Madre de Dios!” cries the girl, blushing with almost a ruby light, “I meant my hand. Holy Virgin! what a mistake. If the Countess had seen it”—then, in spite of herself, she laughs, though she droops and turns away her head.

Of this Guy takes advantage—for her beauty is of a kind to make men crazy. In an instant he has taken the soft, exquisite, patrician fingers in his, and [[33]]has rectified the mistake of Anglo-Saxon fervor and impetuosity.

But just the same, this kiss on the lips has done his business, and also that of the lady, though at present she doesn’t know it. She says hurriedly: “I have told the Countess de Mansfeld of your service to me. She would have begged your attendance at the fête, but I had presumed you were not in the costume of ceremony. I see my mistake. You are gallantly arrayed. Will you not join in our festival?”

“I beg you not,” answers Guy more hurriedly, for he knows in the glittering throng he will have no such chance of a tête-à-tête as he has now.

“Ah, you fear your being absent without leave from Romero’s Sicilians. They are quartered at Middelburg, I believe. That accounts for your coming by ship. But,” the lady goes on earnestly, “I have thought about that. If you are questioned in Antwerp, say that you have come as their Eletto from the officers to demand when their back pay and arrears shall be made good. For since the Queen of England stole from us eight hundred thousand crowns, you know no soldier in Brabant, Flanders nor Friesland has had pay. Make such a statement as that, and it will probably save you from any further questioning on the subject of written leave of absence from Romero.”

“Egad!” thinks Guy, “I wonder what she would say if she knew I had had a great hand in stealing that eight hundred thousand crowns.” But he goes on very earnestly, for the lady has apparently forgotten her embarrassment and her eyes are looking straight into his: “Many thanks for your kind suggestion, Doña Hermoine. I will remember it if questioned by provost marshal. But,” here his eyes make hers droop before his, “I am more pleased than you can imagine at your suggestion—not that it may save me from arrest, but that it shows me that while away from me you had mind of me.”

“In that case permit me to show you that I thought of you more than you even now imagine,” answers the girl, blushing at the admiration with which the young gentleman is regarding her. “I also wrote a missive—this. After you have rejoined your command, at the [[34]]first convenient opportunity present this at headquarters, and I think it will insure you a colonelcy.” With this she hands him a note, at which he starts astounded, for it is addressed to “Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, Viceroy of Spain.”

“Who the devil can she be?” thinks Guy, but he has no time to waste on queries; surprises come fast upon him. The girl says hurriedly: “The Countess de Mansfeld and her guests await me. This fête is in my honor;” then adds in a faltering tone that gives Guy one great gasp of hope: “To remain longer would invite comment,” touching a silver hand-bell on the table.

And he, hearing this knell of parting joy, knowing that it may mean death to him to see her more, and dominated by that wild passion which comes but once in a man’s life-time, and makes him know that she, of all the beings of this earth, is the one for whom, if necessary, he would die, mutters agitatedly: “Then there is but time to thank you with my whole heart for your kindness to an unknown one; to tell you—” but his eyes are speaking faster than his lips, and with an affrighted “Madre Mia!” she draws fluttering back, as he, made desperate by approaching footsteps, whispers three words: “I love you!”

To which she gasps: “No! no! you don’t know who I am!”

And he, dropping on one knee, whispers: “Were you the Queen of Spain I’d tell you that I loved you!” and presses on her jeweled hand the kiss of truth and devotion eternal.

But the servitor is entering, and she speaks, haughty and commanding, as if she were the Queen of Spain: “Order an ensign to escort Captain Guido with all due honor from the Citadel.”

A quick rush of silk and flutter of laces and she is at the door of the room, but turns as if regretful of her going.

And he, gazing at her, his heart in his eyes, sees a picture that he never forgets; for the girl stands in graceful attitude of fairest youth, arrayed in laces, silks and glittering gems, with bare white neck and snowy maiden bosom; one little Andalusian foot in [[35]]fairy web of Brussels and tiny slipper of velvet advanced from under her short petticoat of lace and silk, and one white hand draping the tapestry of the door above her, the other motioning farewell.

He makes hurried steps towards her and whispers: “Is it eternal?”

“Eternal? How solemn!” she tries to laugh, “Remember me by this!” and, taking from her white finger a ring set with one bright flaming ruby, drops it into his astonished hand, and flits from view.

And as he turns away he gives one great, deep-drawn breath of hope. For in her eyes has come something that has answered to his words: “Were you the Queen of Spain I love you!”

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER III.

THE SIX DRUNKARDS OF BRUSSELS.

A moment after, as Chester presses the ring upon his little finger, a young Spaniard, almost a boy, with dark fiery eyes and ornamented by an incipient mustache that he attempts to curl fiercely, in full uniform with breastplate and plumed steel cap, enters the apartment and says briskly: “I am the officer deputed to escort you from the Citadel, señor. Permit me to present myself as Ensign José de Busaco, of Mondragon’s Arquebusiers.”

“And in return,” answers Guy, throwing on his boat cloak and preparing to follow the young man, “I beg to announce myself as the Capitan Guido Amati, of Romero’s Musketeers.”

“Of the Middelburg garrison, I presume,” remarks the ensign, as they leave the house together. “I suppose you have run up for a little roistering at Antwerp. Middelburg is a desperately sleepy place; I was quartered there three years ago. Brabant is slow also now since we smashed Louis of Nassau up at Jemmingen. I cut ten German throats there,” adds the boy very fiercely and very proudly. [[36]]

“Diablo! You are a fighter,” mutters Guy.

“Pooh! these German burghers and townspeople were nothing against us Spanish veterans,” replies Ensign de Busaco. “We killed eight thousand, you remember, and lost only eight men. That was Alva’s generalship. He has put up a big monument to himself over there,” and the boy points across the great enceinte of the citadel through which they are passing on their way to the main gate leading to the city.

Following his gesture in the gloom Chester can see the pedestal of that great statue made of the cannon taken at Jemmingen, which the pacificator and ravager of the Netherlands is erecting to his own honor and glory, greatly to the disgust of Philip of Spain, who does not care to have his generals too famous.

“Jake Yongling has made a great figure of the Viceroy. It is sixteen feet high, and with the pedestal nearly thirty. Here’s the last one of the arms,” continues the boyish warrior, giving a careless kick to the representation in iron of his general, lying on the ground. Then he whispers mysteriously: “They say this statue has a secret. What does the Duke with his tenth penny tax, eh; where does he put the money?”

But, passing this, they are soon at the great military causeway that leads to the drawbridge across the moat that gives egress to the Esplanade of the city. Above the massive archway of its heavy gate, chiseled in stone, is a shield with a royal castle with three towers, on each a raven, and each guarded by a wolf—the arms of Alva; beneath, the collar of the Golden Fleece, from which hangs, as if in mockery of this country conquered by blood and fire, a representation of the Lamb of God. This decoration is easily revealed to Guy as he passes by flaming flambeaux, some of which are held in the hands of the guard and others stuck in the niches in the wall.

The military etiquette of the place compels Chester’s attendant to report to the officer of the day.

To do this they enter a guard-room, well lighted by a dozen burning candles, and while the young ensign is making his report and receiving order for the lowering of the drawbridge, Chester carelessly looking over a [[37]]number of military placards on the dingy wall, sees one that, sound as are his nerves, causes him a quiver, for it reads as follows:

LARGESS!

THREE THOUSAND CAROLUS GUILDERS!

Whereas, a certain Englishman named Guy Stanhope Chester, and better known among the inhabitants of these Netherlands as De Eersteling der Engelschen (The First of the English), who has been disowned and disavowed by his Queen, Elizabeth of England, on March twenty-first of the year 1571, resisted arrest by our own armed Spanish galley, Santa Cruz, and has since been acting against the weal of these provinces of Spain, killing and murdering the soldiers and sailors of Philip Rex, this will be warranted for any governor of our towns or garrisons to make payment of the above sum to any one delivering the body or head of said named Guy Stanhope Chester, whom we hereby proclaim as pirate and outlaw, by order of

(Signed) ALVA, Viceroy.

(Countersigned) Juan de Vargas, President of the Council.

This is posted up among various military orders pertaining to the Citadel, and one or two other proclamations of outlawry or taxes. After the first emotion Guy reads it calmly, and is relieved that the description attached to the proclamation is faulty in several particulars.

“All right, Captain Guido! I’ve got the order!” says the young ensign, clapping him on the shoulder. Then he continues: “Ah! you’re reading about the First of the English,” and as they turn away together he runs on vivaciously: “Three thousand Carolus guilders! That would be an addition to my pay. Wouldn’t I like to get my hands on him! Three thousand guilders! We’d have a banquet, wouldn’t we, Señor Capitan, bought by the pirate’s head!”

Here the young Spaniard is cut short in his speech by the necessity of giving the countersign and passing himself and his companion through the gates, as the drawbridge [[38]]is lowered. This is easily accomplished, as a strong detachment of the garrison are under arms, and a portion of the troops have just moved out to reinforce the Spanish guard in the town and to give as much assistance as possible in protecting the property of the government that is endangered upon the wharves and quays of Antwerp by the flood, which is apparently still rising; the town being still lighted up and the church bells still ringing out their alarms.

“Here I must leave you,” says De Busaco, after they have passed the drawbridge and the last line of sentries; “What inn will you lodge at? the Red Lion? That has the best wine, I think.”

“No,” answers Guy shortly, for he has considered this point; “I shall rest at the Painted House. It is more quiet.”

“Is it?” laughs the young man. “You don’t know what’s going to happen there to-morrow. Par Dios! half the burghers of the city will be there to see it, and half the officers of the garrison. You have not heard the news? The great painter, the Raphael of the Netherlands, Frans Floris, has accepted the wager of the ‘Six Drunkards of Brussels’ that he will drink them all under the table at one sitting. Sapristi! from stories about him, I believe he’ll do it. I shall come in to see it; I pray I may meet you there!”

“Very well, come in and drink a flagon with me!” says Chester, thinking that being seen with this Spanish officer will be additional passport to him in this city of his enemies, with a price set on his head. At this young De Busaco, for the two have chatted together quite jovially as they have passed along, and have grown to be rather en comrade, remarks: “You see your way across the Esplanade; the street of the Beguins is straight ahead of you!” and with a friendly salute marches back to the Citadel.

For one second the Englishman turns after him, a question that has been on his mind every instant since he left her, is now full upon his lips. The next moment he pauses, thinking, “No—to ask from the officer in whose charge she placed me the name and station of my—my love—” he rolls the sound in his mind as if it were a very sweet morsel—“would be too dangerous. I at [[39]]least should know the lady I have escorted to Antwerp.”

So he strides across the Esplanade, which is kept free of trees and all other impediment to the fire of the guns of the Spanish Citadel, that dominates this Flemish town. Cogitating upon this being of his dream, Chester mutters: “That painter can tell me, he knows,” and quickens his pace.

A moment after the Englishman finds himself at the entrance of the great street of the Beguins, which leads into the heart of the city. Here, clapping his hands several times, he calls out: “Link boy! Light! Link boy!” which in the course of a little time brings to him a wandering urchin of the street carrying a flaming pine torch.

“Which way, your nobleness?” asks the Arab, for Guy’s manner and bearing are patrician.

“To Wool street! The house of Jacques Touraine.”

“Oh! The blood-letter and barber,” answers the boy. “I know his painted pole.”

So skipping along ahead of the young Englishman’s rapid strides, they proceed down the street of the Beguins, lighted occasionally by lamps hanging from the gable ends of the houses of the burghers, and pass by the imposing Church of our Dear Lady of Antwerp, now known as the Cathedral Notre Dame, from which the chimes come every quarter of an hour, silvery and sweet upon the midnight air. Then they dive into the labyrinth of narrow streets filled with the mediæval filth that still clings to them even to this day, making toward the northern end of the town.

A few minutes of struggling through close alleys and they stop at a long pole painted in alternate stripes of red, blue and white, that distinguishes the house of Monsieur Jacques Touraine, the little French leecher, surgeon, blood-letter and barber.

Late as it is there is no need to knock and rouse him, for this gentleman is in front of his door, talking excitedly in his Gallic way to several of his neighbors. He has a little child of some seven years of age by the hand, and is saying nervously: “Mon Dieu! if the tide reaches here!”

“Drommelsch!” answers one of his companions, “The [[40]]devil himself couldn’t make the flood run up this hill! The mark of the deluge of 1300 is fifty feet below us.” Then he gives a hideous laugh and jeers: “How you French hate water.”

Breaking in upon this colloquy, Guy beckons the barber to one side and says to him: “Is the painter who lodges with you, Antony Oliver, in to-night?”

The answer he gets is discouraging: “No, he is in Brussels.”

“Ah!” assents Guy, the corners of his mouth drooping at these words, for it is this Oliver he has braved so much to see, and he dares not remain long in Antwerp. Then he asks anxiously: “Do you know when he will return?”

“To-morrow. He will come with his master, the Duke of Alva, to-morrow. He is herald and under-secretary to the Viceroy.”

“Yes!” cries the little boy, “I’m so glad of it, because when Monsieur Oliver comes we have so much pigeon pie. I like pigeon pie—don’t you?”

“Desperately,” laughs Guy, relieved at the knowledge of the painter’s quick return.

“Then I hope you won’t ask Monsieur Oliver for my share of pigeon pie,” babbles the child. “Perhaps, though, we won’t get any—a man carried so many pigeons away to-day.”

“Well, here’s a stiver to buy pigeon pie for yourself, my little man,” laughs Chester, giving the child a coin. Then he says to the father: “You are sure about your information?”

“Oh, I think so. You can make absolutely sure by asking his great friends, the Bodé Volckers. They will certainly know. He is a nice man, this Oliver, and a great painter—at least, he thinks himself a great painter. He has my son Achille as his student—my youngest is the little Maredie, the one who likes pigeon pie,” babbles the Frenchman, who has apparently been relieved from fear of the flood and pleased by Guy’s douceur to his child. Then he queries suddenly: “Haven’t I seen you before? You came to visit Monsieur Antony six months ago.”

“Yes,” answers the Englishman shortly, and to prevent [[41]]further interrogation queries: “Can you tell me where the Bodé Volckers’ live?”

“Oh, every one knows that; he is our ex-Burgomaster, the merchant prince, Niklaas Bodé Volcker, who lives on the Place de Meir.”

“Ah, the Place de Meir, thank you, señor,” answers Guy. He turns away, and calling the link boy again, says: “Bodé Volcker’s!”

“That means two stivers more,” cries the urchin; “anyone that would visit a burgomaster’s could afford two stivers.”

“Four, if you take me there quickly.”

“Four? Pots dit en dat! you must be a count,” cries the delighted child, and, skipping vivaciously before his patron, he soon guides him back past the cathedral to the magnificent residence where old Bodé Volcker, merchant prince of that day, whose argosies sailed to the Indies, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, lived in great state and pomp and wealth, but for all that was still only a merchant, trader and burgher; and to the haughty nobles of that day nothing more than the dust of the earth—unless they wanted to borrow his money. But as has always been the case, great financial success has prompted social ambition. Niklaas Bodé Volcker’s family is even now knocking at noble and aristocratic doors.

Evidences of this comes to Guy almost as he reaches the portals of the merchant.

The house is pretentious, being built of cut stone around a large courtyard, the archway to this permitting a carriage to drive in, and acting as the entrance to the mansion itself, which is lighted up, one portion more brilliantly than the other. This is apparently the counting and sample room of Niklaas Bodé Volcker himself. From out its open doors several clerks and half a dozen porters are passing, and big vans of goods are arriving loaded with what are apparently cloths, silks and satins from the flooded water-front. Everyone seems to be on the alert.

“I must see Heer Bodé Volcker for a moment,” says Guy to a bustling apprentice.

“Must see Heer Bodé Volcker to-night?” gasps the [[42]]man; “the night in which his warehouses are all flooded?”

“I must see him. Do you hear me, fellow? Quick!” mutters Chester, who, being of gentle blood, is accustomed to command merchants, burghers, tradesmen and the like.

“That’s impossible, unless you go to the docks,” returns the apprentice. “Heer Bodé Volcker is seeing to the removal of his perishable merchandise at his big warehouse below the English quay.”

Baffled in this direction, our adventurer turns his steps from the counting room and going to the principal entrance of the house finds a voluble servant girl in conversation with a man who is apparently the family coachman, the horses and equipage being drawn up in front of the house. They are evidently discussing the inundation of the city, for the girl is interspersing her periods with a good many excited “Och Armes!” and “Groote genades!”

As there are lights in the front windows of the house Guy immediately addresses the girl, saying: “Is it possible for me to see any of the members of Niklaas Bodé Volcker’s family?”

“I’m not sure,” is the answer. “If Mijn Heer would step in I’ll ask.”

She emphasizes this with a respectful courtesy, as Guy’s ready hand puts a few stivers into hers. His manner is commanding, his appearance aristocratic, his hand is generous, and the girl is anxious to do his bidding.

Turning toward the right she shows the way into a large vaulted room hung with Spanish stamped leather, the furniture and appointments of which have all the indications of wealth, even luxury, as it has tapestries upon its floor, and many of the articles of its furnishing have been imported from Italy, Spain, and even Turkey itself, some of the rugs being from the looms of Ispahan and Bokara. The apartment is illuminated by a handsome swinging candelabra full of lighted wax candles. From this room a carved oaken stairway leads apparently to the upper apartments of the house.

“Wiarda Schwartz!” cries the girl; “Wiarda!” clapping her hands. Receiving no answer to this she says: [[43]]“I’ll be back in a minute,” and running lightly upstairs returns in a few minutes followed by a bright, vivacious, dark-eyed lady’s maid, whose attire indicates she is the favorite of her mistress, and whose short muslin skirts and white, high Friesian peasant’s cap denotes the soubrette.

In answer to the girl’s rather off-hand courtesy, Chester remarks: “I am the Captain Guido Amati, of Romero’s foot. Can I see Vrouw Bodé Volcker for a moment?”

“Not unless you go to the other world,” answers the girl pertly. “Vrouw Bodé Volcker has been dead four years.”

“That is going further than walking to the warehouses for her widower,” smiles Guy. Then he asks: “Can I see the mistress of the house?”

“Oh, you mean Freule Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker,” says the girl. Next adds majestically: “Freule Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker is at present at the fête of the Countess de Mansfeld.”

Remembering the Countess Mansfeld’s lackey’s slurring remarks about the daughter of an ex-burgomaster dancing in his highest priced silks for the entertainment of the company, it is difficult for Chester to fight down a chuckle. However, being very anxious for information, he suggests: “Then, perhaps, you can answer my question. Do you know when Antony Oliver, the herald of the Duke of Alva, is returning to Brussels?”

And this ruins Captain Guido Amati in the estimation of Wiarda Schwartz, maid in waiting to the ex-burgomaster’s daughter. She says with pert arrogance: “Well, I never! That good-for-nothing, beggarly painter? I know nothing about him. I had supposed Mijn Heer Captain was acquainted with the nobility!”

As Guy passes out of the house without information, he sees Mademoiselle Schwartz’s pert nose very much up in the air and Mademoiselle Schwartz’s red stockinged ankle and shapely foot patting the floor in jeering gesture.

“There is nothing but to be quiet and sleep until morning. I might as well get some of that,” cogitates [[44]]the Englishman. “God only knows what to-morrow will bring to me.”

So getting hold of the link boy again, who has evidently loitered about in hopes that Guy’s visit at the Bodé Volckers’ will be short, Chester gives him his orders, and is conducted to the inn known as “The Painted House,” celebrated for its wine and beer, and situated on the Shoemarket opposite the Place de Meir. It is but a few steps from the residence of the merchant, and can be easily distinguished, Guy notes as he approaches, by its high, painted gables, which give it its name.

Lights are showing from its lower rooms, the pentice or wooden awning in front of it is ornamented by evergreens and shrubs and illuminated by swinging lamps; chairs and tables are under these, on which lounge several of the better-to-do burghers of the town, a couple of Spanish officers, and half a dozen travelers. Late as it is the sound of revelry comes from the main inner room.

He is welcomed at the door by mine host, the obsequious Herman Van Oncle, who is making a fortune out of his famous supper parties and weddings, for this is the house of festivity par excellence of the town. Den Rooden Leeuw (“Red Lion”) may be more aristocratic, but for wine bibbing, beer drinking and gorgeous wedding festivities that last three days at a time, “The Painted House” of Antwerp easily holds the vantage.

“Welcome to the Painted House!” cries the voluble innkeeper. “Welcome señor—colonel?”

“No, captain,” says Guy.

“Welcome to anyone who is in the employ of the State, civil or military.”

“I would like a room and bed.”

“Impossible!”

“Impossible?”

“Yes; my house has been crowded all day.”

“You must give me a cot.”

“Well, a cot over the stable. My house has been full—you have heard the news! The great drinking bout takes place to-morrow between our celebrated artist, Frans Floris and the Six Drunkards of Brussels. People have come from the neighboring places to see [[45]]it. A delegation is here from Brussels itself. It is rumored that the Duke in person will arrive to-morrow. Perhaps he will honor me—perhaps he will come to see the greatest drinking bout that has ever taken place in Flanders, Brabant or Holland! I shall have twenty barrels of Rhine wine on tap.”

“Twenty barrels for six drunkards?” laughs Chester.

“Oh no; all the town will be here, all the town will get drunk also!”

“I wish the town would be more quiet,” says Guy, who thinks he will have little chance of sleep, judging by the convivial sounds that come to them from within.

“Hush!” whispers the innkeeper nervously, as they enter. “Don’t disturb them. They are,” and his eyes expand in admiration, “they are the Six Drunkards of Brussels taking supper!”

“Apparently the Six Drunkards of Brussels,” remarks Guy, who is unimpressed by the sounding title, “are not holding themselves back much for to-morrow. They are doing pretty well now.”

“Yes, that is the beauty of it,” says mine host, waving his Flemish hands in admiration. “That is the reason they are called drunkards; nothing will ever make them drunk. They have finished six gallons of wine and are just commencing. They have a lovely pigeon pie in front of them; I made it myself from birds furnished by Señor Vasco de Guerra himself. He is the leader of the Six Drunkards, though the betting is still two to one on our Netherland painter, the greatest artist of his day, the Raphael of the low countries, our honor, our glory, our debtor (for he owes me four thousand Carolus guilders), but still the pride of Antwerp! Will you not have bite and sup, señor Capitan, before retiring to the attic over the stable?”

“Yes, a quart of Rhine wine will be enough for me,” says Guy. “Or, rather,” he suggests, “as you are celebrated for your beer, I will take some of that,” the Englishman upholding his national beverage.

“The finest in all Flanders. And then we have some malt from London.”

“That’s it!” cries Guy, forgetting his Spanish character, “English malt for me!” then checks himself and mutters: “I’ve been drinking Rhine wine all day.” [[46]]

His host departing, he lounges about while his meal is being prepared, tracing figures with his toe on the white sand of the floor, and reading among other placards on the walls of this, the wine room of the inn, one announcing the grand drinking bout between Frans de Vriendt, nicknamed Floris, and the six most celebrated topers of Brussels. This is placarded side by side with Alva’s generous offer of three thousand carolus guilders for the Englishman’s head.

A moment later he finds himself placed at a table near the one occupied by the six champions of Brussels. Carelessly he gets interested in them, for they are six of the most remarkable looking people his eyes have ever rested upon.

During their conversation he catches their names.

Vasco de Guerra, apparently the leader of the party; Tomasito, called by his companions the one-eyed, an ensign of De Billy’s Waloons, who lost an optic at Aremburg’s defeat, and Pablo Mendez are Spanish officers, and apparently, from their conversation, consider themselves nobles of rank and distinction. The other champions are more modest in their self-assertion, except as regards the amount of liquid that they can consume. Two are addressed as Alphonse de la Noel and Conrad de Ryk, both Netherlanders, one of Brabant and the other of Holland; the last member of the party is a sneaking little Italian, designated as Guisseppi Pisa, a dealer in perfumes and women’s powders from the capital.

Having nothing better to do as he drinks his beer, Guy Chester listens to their conversation in a languid, dreamy way, as the exertions of the night have made him very tired.

“Par Dios!” remarks Vasco de Guerra, who is tall and has big, opaque, fishy eyes, and a long drooping mustache which has in it that single lock of grey which is generally considered proof of extreme dissipation, “I see our adversary Floris has painted a caricature of us.”

“Diablo! Is it insulting?” cries Tomasito, the one-eyed, a little Spaniard of diabolical disposition, famous as well for his cruelty on the battle-field as for his dissipation in the banquet hall. [[47]]

“No,” says Mendez, laughing, “only he has painted us all under the table.”

“Sapristi!” chuckles the Italian Pisa. “He may paint us under the table, but he can’t drink us under the table.” Then he calls: “Pot-boy! another stoup of strong Rhine wine. I must get in training for to-morrow’s bout. Marietta is coming from Brussels to do honor to my drinking powers.” This is emphasized by a hideous wink and a leer at his companions, who cry: “Brava! the health of Marietta, the prettiest light of love in Brussels!” and pour down great flagons of wine in compliment to wicked little Guisseppi, whose powders and laces have captured the leader of the demi-monde of the capital.

While this is being brought Mendez exclaims: “Caramba! there are no more pigeons in this pie,” withdrawing a knife with which he has been exploring the open pasty before him, and licking his fingers regretfully in the absence of a napkin. “You only gave us six pigeons, Captain Vasco.”

“That was all I shot with my cross-bow,” answers De Guerra.

“You shot pigeons with your cross-bow?” jeers Conrad de Ryk.

“Certainly!—to-day—here!”

“Bah! your hand trembles, Vasco, as if you were paying over the five hundred guilders we have wagered against the painter!” sneers De la Noel.

“Notwithstanding, I shot them,” returns Vasco, a strange light coming into his fishy eyes; “and I not only killed the six pigeons, but I shall kill—another! We’ll have a banquet when I get my reward for his head!” He grinds his teeth at these words.

“His head?” cries one.

“The reward of three thousand caroli for the Englishman’s caput?” shouts another, pointing to the placard, and making Guy’s hand involuntarily seek his sword.

“Bah!” chuckles Vasco. “Do you think I am going on the briny deep to get seasick and have that English pirate cut my throat? No, there are rewards nearer home, when I kill my seventh pigeon we’ll have more pigeon pie and a carouse with a little of the money.”

This rather equivocal promise is greeted with cheers [[48]]and a clattering of beakers and flagons. The Six Drunkards of Brussels seem to like pigeon-pie as well as the little son of the surgeon and blood-letter, Jacques Touraine.

But Guy’s attention is called from the scene of conviviality. The host, bowing before him, says humbly: “Señor capitan, your bed is ready, the sheets are clean, nobody has slept in them for three days!”

Following Van Oncle, who carries a wax candle, Chester is escorted to a loft over the stable, which is at least airy and well ventilated, as it has several open windows which nobody has taken the trouble to close.

A moment after he finds himself practically alone—the only occupant of the neighboring cots being in a drunken sleep, the others have not yet come in. Securing his valuables (and most carefully of all that which he deems the most valuable—the miniature of the lady whose name he does not know, but whom he now knows he loves heart and soul), Captain Guy Chester looks carefully to his arms, then goes to bed. Then taking a last dreamy look at the fair, delicate face and glorious eyes and red lips that he has kissed once, but swears to kiss again, he goes to sleep calmly and peacefully in the city of his enemies, under the flag of Spain and Alva, while in the room below, the streets about him, and on the walls of every guard-house in Brabant and Flanders, are placards offering three thousand carolus guilders for the head of the “First of the English.”

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER IV.

THE PATRIOT PAINTER.

The sun is well up in the heavens when Guy opens his eyes. In contrast to the night before, the gale has died away and the sun is shining brightly as if to mock the farmers and peasants of the surrounding fields and polders, whose cattle are still drowning or starving, for the flood gives no signs of receding. A little of this Chester can see as he makes hasty toilet; [[49]]looking from his window he gets a glimpse of the river, which is still at its height, and upon whose bosom still float the carcasses of drowned sheep, cattle, hogs, and even human beings.

But the city seems now to pay little heed to this. The gale has gone down, ships are preparing to sail out of the Schelde for the Indies and the Mediterranean; the merchants have removed their wares to places of safety; mediæval commerce stops no more its battle of trade and bargain, for the disasters of humanity—than that of to-day.

The hum of traffic comes floating up to Guy from the neighboring Shoemarket and Egg streets. All the guilds of Antwerp are at work this day, and seemingly happy, save that of the Butchers, which has lost many fat beeves that have been pastured on the great meadows running out to the big Kowenstyn dyke.

As it is late in the morning most of those who have occupied the surrounding cots during the night have departed on their way. Consequently Guy, having, after the manner of sailors, slept ready to go on deck, slips on doublet and cloak uninterrupted save by the snores of a toper who is still in drunken slumber.

Then going down to the wash-room of the house, upon the lower floor, the Englishman makes hasty ablution, succeeding by the bribe of a stiver in obtaining an unused towel for the purpose.

This being done, and feeling very bright, vivacious and cheery, notwithstanding he catches glimpses of the placard in the wine room offering a reward for his head, Chester passes out and makes his way rapidly through the dirty alleys of the lower portion of the town to Wool street. Remembering his unsuccessful inquiries at the Bodé Volcker mansion, the Englishman has concluded that he will see if he can obtain further information from the French blood-letter and barber about the arrival of his lodger. For speed is vital to the business that has brought Guy into the clutches of his enemies, and every moment that he stays in the town of Antwerp adds to his danger of recognition and arrest; too many Flemish traders from Zeeland and the islands of Holland journey to this great commercial city, some of these know the [[50]]“First of the English” quite well by sight, and a few of them, for three thousand carolus guilders would sell anything upon earth, including themselves.

Arriving at the barber’s pole of Jacques Touraine, Chester receives a pleasant surprise. The voluble little Frenchman darts out to meet him, crying: “He is anxious for you; I told him you had asked for him!”

“He—who?” gasps Guy.

“Why, my lodger, the painter, Antony Oliver. He came in from Brussels this morning. He is as eager to see you as you are to see him.”

But the last of this speech is lost upon the Englishman, who has darted up two flights of stairs to the top of the house, where, under the tiled gables, amid the swallows’ nests, is the lodging room and atelier of Antonius Oliver (familiarly called Antony), geographical map maker, herald and pursevant, and at times assistant secretary to Alva, Viceroy of the Netherlands. This gentleman’s salary is not great; his position, while partially confidential, is not very exalted; though it often brings him into direct contact with the great Duke himself. For Oliver has striven, with all his might and main to gain the confidence of his master.

He is a native of Mons, near the French border of the Netherlands, and is partly of Flemish and partly of Gallic extraction. At present he is apparently washing the dust of travel from his face, as he makes his appearance minus his cloak and doublet, towel in hand, and answers the Englishman’s smart knock on his door.

“Ah!” he cries, his face full of sunny smile, “I am delighted to see you, my friend, my Guido!”

“And so am I, Antony, my boy,” answers Chester, with hearty outstretched hand. For a few weeks of supreme mutual danger have made these two men as good comrades as years of ordinary friendship.

“So glad to see you,” goes on the Fleming, “and yet sorry.” He whispers: “You know of the reward for you?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” answers Guy, shortly.

“Ah! at your inn?”

“No, in the guard-room of the Citadel.” [[51]]

“Mon Dieu! You have been arrested and examined,” the painter gasps, anxiously.

“No, I went as cavalier to a great court lady!” laughs the English sailor. “For it I am to be promoted to a colonelship in Romero’s musketeers!”

“Impossible! Tell me your story!”

“I will,” says Guy, “it contains the business that brought me to Antwerp.”

“Yes,” answers the other, meditatively, “your business must be of the greatest importance to make you again take this risk.”

“It is for the same old reason—my Queen!” whispers Guy; “Is there no one about?”

“No; Achille, my apprentice, I have sent out on a long errand, as I expected your coming and wanted to have private converse.”

“What long errand?”

“I sent him out to buy wine, bread, provisions, cheese, beef, on credit. Achille is an active boy, if I had given him the money he would have been back in half an hour.” Then carefully barring the door and drawing a heavy curtain over it, Oliver says: “Tell me your story.”

“Then can you interpret these letters bearing, I think, upon the welfare, yes, the life, of my sovereign?” whispers the Englishman. And producing the packet wrapped in oiled silk which he had taken from the body of the drowned Italian the evening before, Guy tells the artist the curious story of the preceding night. His recital is punctuated by vivacious exclamations of surprise, deep interest, and several times by uproarious laughter from his Flemish listener.

As the Englishman finishes the painter takes up the conversation.

“Ah!” he exclaims, looking carefully at the documents, “you took these from the body of the secretary of Chiapin Vitelli.” Then he adds: “I am one of the few men who could read them. They are in the private cipher used by the secret correspondence bureau of my master, my benefactor, he who pays me my stipend, the man whose hand I kiss—he of Alva!” A strange light coming into his eyes as he speaks of his benefactor. [[52]]“The reading is very simple when you know the key, which I have memorized and have in my head—I dare not keep it anywhere else.”

“Then give me the meaning of these letters!”

“Certainly,” says the artist. “You can amuse yourself with my sketches as I look over them.”

This he does hastily, while Guy passes the time examining a number of studies in charcoal upon canvas and panels, apparently the work of the young Fleming. At one side of the apartment is a marble slab used in grinding colors, upon it a number of brushes, a palette, and some little bladders of ground paint, such as were used by the artists of that day. Upon an easel stands an unfinished picture of a fair haired, blue eyed Flemish girl of great beauty, though it is of almost the peasant style. This has been sketched after the manner of the Venetian school upon what was known then as the red ground. At the back of the apartment is a large curtain, apparently concealing some more important work, as it is quite large, covering the whole rear of the garret floor of the house.

“Don’t peep behind,” says the painter, looking up as Guy’s footsteps approach the curtain. “I have a surprise for you there, I think,” and pausing in his reading, he looks up with a quizzical expression at the Englishman. “Something you will be interested in, I imagine; you could not see the face of the fair one of the barge!” For Guy, in his description of his evening’s adventure, has omitted, with the instinctive delicacy of the gentleman and the lover, any account of his interview at the house of the Countess de Mansfeld, with the lady he rescued.

“What do you mean?” asks Chester, eagerly. “Wait for a moment,” and a muttered exclamation of surprise calls Guy to the painter’s side, who has apparently become greatly excited over the cipher letters.

Here he stands, impatient, awaiting the outcome of the Fleming’s inspection of the documents.

A minute later Oliver looks up and remarks: “I can now tell you in rough form the contents of these letters.”

“What are they?” inquires Guy eagerly.

“These are two letters, written by Chiapin Vitelli, [[53]]Alva’s confidential officer, and evidently given to his secretary—such is their value—to deliver in person to one Ridolfi, an Italian, who is a banker in London.”

“Ridolfi? Yes, I’ve heard of him. He has a great many dealings with Italy; he is a goldsmith as well as banker; his place is on Cheapside,” mutters Chester. “What about him?”

“Well, this is apparently a letter of a series, some of which must have been answered, in which Alva is arranging with Ridolfi, who is apparently the agent of the Duke of Norfolk, the man who would marry the Queen of Scots, now in Elizabeth’s hands, for the poisoning of the Queen of England!”

“The poisoning of my sovereign! Good God!” gasps Guy. A moment after, forcing himself to calmness, he continues: “Yes; rumors of this or of a similar plot have been brought to the notice of Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State. You know it is to investigate such matters that I am sent over here and disowned by my sovereign, who wishes at present to appear at peace with Alva, but who, in her time, will have her reckoning—and an English reckoning at that—with your Netherland tyrant!”

“I know that. That is why I aid you,” mutters the painter. “Elizabeth is the only hope of the Netherlands. We have been crushed and butchered at Jemmingen, the Prince of Orange is now in exile, a fugitive in Germany, France distracted with her own affairs, Coligny and Condé at swords points with the league, can give us but uncertain aid—England is our only hope. As such I have welcomed you as the ‘First of the English’ to come to aid the Flemings. You will not be the last—I know it! But”—here the light of patriotism comes into the painter’s face, “we must do our part. As such I have condemned myself to live under the most terrible suspense that can be put upon a man—a traitor in the very household, at the very writing table, of the Spanish Viceroy, so that I may give information of his movements to Louis of Nassau and William the Silent. Discovery means—you know what!”

Then he laughs a ghastly laugh and whispers: “What would Alva, who burns people alive slowly for eating [[54]]meat on Friday; who beheads women for sheltering their own husbands; who permits his troops to burn, outrage, pillage and ravage defenseless burghers and peaceful citizens; what would he do with a discovered spy in his own retinue? Are there enough racks, thumb-screws and faggots for him?” he shudders; then adds determinedly: “But all for my country!”

“And I all for my own,” answers Guy. “A price set upon my head as a pirate, and all for my Queen. Elizabeth smiles on me at court, calls me her valiant freebooter, yet tells the ambassador of Philip of Spain that I am here on my own account, and disowns me; though she knows it is for her interests, to guard her life, to discover such damnable plots as these, that I take my life within my hand! Besides,” he goes on, his eyes beginning to blaze, “I don’t love the Spaniards.”

“Personally,” remarks the Flemish painter, “I have found some very pleasant gentlemen among them; though among those who flock here to Alva’s banner are scoundrels innumerable. But it is for my country that I live a life of suspense, each breath almost an apprehension.”

Looking at the painter, Guy sees that this is true. He is rather small of figure, though well-built and agile; but has dark soft eyes, singularly delicate, mobile lips for a man, and a high, intellectual forehead. As Chester gazes, he is sure Antony Oliver is a brave man. At the same instant he knows he is a man with such a terrible fate hanging over him that his nerves are unstrung by constant and never-ending apprehension.

However, he speaks to the point.

“I hate every Spaniard, gentleman or no gentleman, peasant or noble, because I have a brother in the prisons of the Inquisition at Hispaniola.”

“Poor fellow!” mutters the painter, with a little shudder. “In Hispaniola! That’s a long way off.”

“Not for an English sailor. Seven years ago Dick and I, full of youth and ardor, sailed with Captain Ned Lovell to the Spanish Main, and traded there with the Dons of Hispaniola, and as we were Catholics, lived quite comfortably in the town of Haytien, accumulating wealth. Then I, with my doubloons and pieces [[55]]of eight, returned to merry England, leaving Dick to turn the rest of our merchandise into gold and follow after. A year passed. Then no Dick; but word was brought me by Hawkins coming back from his third voyage, that Dick had fallen in love with a Spanish girl; that his rivals, for revenge, had denounced him as an English heretic, and the—the Inquisition—.” The Englishman’s voice is broken, there are tears in his eyes, though they burn fiercely. “Then I was ready to hate the Spaniards and do Queen Elizabeth’s work,” mutters Guy, after a moment’s pause, “the work that gave me this miniature.”

“Can you tell me,” he says suddenly, producing the likeness, on ivory set with diamonds, “the name and title of the lady whose face is here?”

“Oho!” chuckles the painter, a twinkle in his eye, “I had been expecting some such question ever since you told me about the lady of the barge. Did she give you this? Has she also been smitten by Cupid’s dart?”

“What do you mean?” growls the Englishman, blushes showing beneath his sun-burned skin.

“I mean,” laughs Antony, “that you are a man very deeply in love. In your tale of last night every time you mentioned the ‘divinity of the barge,’ the ‘fair unknown,’ the ‘graceful creature of the shadow,’ the ‘fairy-like form the gloom could not conceal,’ the ‘voice soft as an angel’s,’ your manner betrayed that even the darkness had not prevented your falling in love with the lady you rescued from our Sea Beggars; that though she had been your captive, you really were hers. Did she reciprocate enough to give you this?”

“No,” returns Guy, “I believe I’ve been in love with this picture ever since I captured it three years ago.”

This answer astounds the painter. He murmurs: “I never supposed you English a romantic race, but you prove to me that the Italians are as beggars to you islanders in impetuous passion. In love with a picture?”

“Yes, it came to me under peculiar circumstances,” answers the Englishman, a little sulkily perhaps, for the artist’s tone is somewhat bantering. “Towards the end of ’68 I was playing tennis in a London court. Elizabeth of England and her prime minister, Sir William [[56]]Cecil, now Lord Burleigh, sent for me. The Queen’s exchequer was empty. Five Italian vessels bearing a loan from the bankers of Genoa to Alva, and loaded with eight hundred thousand crowns in silver, on their way to Antwerp—”

“Yes,” interjects the other with a chuckle, “I know—the money with which the Duke intended to pay his troops—”

“Had been driven into the harbor of Southampton by privateers commissioned by the Prince de Condé, who had been on the lookout to seize this treasure. The Spanish ambassador had appealed to the Queen for naval protection. Being at peace this must be accorded him, but Elizabeth’s exchequer was empty, and harassed by milliner’s bills and other feminine expenses, she had determined to have this silver for her own. Cecil had sent for me, as he knew I spoke Spanish, and thought I was the man for the business. They had already notified the Spanish ambassador to make arrangements for the transport of the treasure from Southampton to Dover by land, so that the Queen’s vessels could meet it there. But while he was making his preparations I received the following curious commission: I was to go down and offer ten thousand crowns to the French privateers not to leave their position outside of Southampton water, so the Genoese vessels dared not sail. Meanwhile the Queen investigated and found the money was loaned by Italian merchants. ‘If they can loan to Alva, they can loan to me,’ she thought. Under the private directions of the Queen of England I seized the eight hundred thousand crowns of silver.”

“And that nearly drove Alva crazy! I can see him now,” laughs the painter, “the morning he received the news twisting both his long pendants of beard in impotent rage. Since then he has hated your Queen and you who forced him to put this tenth penny tax on the Netherlands to pay his troops. But what has the theft of Elizabeth of England to do with your miniature, my marauder?”

“Only this,” answers Guy. “On board the Genoese vessel, when I made the seizure, the only spoil I took for myself was this likeness. Judging from the direction [[57]]on the packet that contained it, that the lady whom it represented must be living in the Netherlands, I was very happy to accept Queen Elizabeth’s private commission to come over here and turn sea rover in her cause, knowing that I took my life in my hand, but also knowing it was my one chance of meeting in the flesh the face that I have loved from that day to this. If that’s romance, make the best of it! Who is she?”

“Ah!” says the painter, “In reply may I show you another picture?”

“Of whom? What do I care for pictures except this one? You artists are always thinking of art—I think of flesh and blood, which beats art.”

“Does it beat THIS?” laughs Oliver, and drawing away the curtain from the rear of the room he discloses an enormous altar piece, unfinished except the central figure, the Madonna, at which Guy looks and gasps, for it is the picture of the woman whose lips he had kissed the night before, whose miniature he now holds in his hand, gazing alternately from it to the magnificent altar piece figure, the Mother of God, on the canvas. It has apparently been a work of love. The Englishman grows red in the face, then deathly pale, and mutters: “You love her also!” scowling at his supposed artistic rival.

“No,” answers Antony, “I do not love the lady; though I love my picture. You need not be jealous my dear Englishman, the woman I love is a much more flesh-and-blood being—Juffer Wilhelmina, daughter of the ex-burgomaster Bodé Volcker. Her blonde picture is on that easel. I don’t hesitate to tell you my secret, as I have yours. But this,” he looks affectionately at the canvas, “is a work of love, love for my art. It is my one hope to leave a name in the world. If I can finish my altar piece before the time comes when the hand that is forever over me crushes me in its iron grasp, I hope to be remembered—not as the patriot, but as the artist!”

“And, by heaven! you will be,” cries Guy, who would certainly give this picture of the woman he loves the post of honor and the wreath of fame, “for you have painted not only a Madonna, but a goddess, fit to be the mother of God.” Here he crosses himself devoutly [[58]]and looks lovingly at the picture again, which well merits his admiration, not only for the loveliness of its model, but for the originality of its effects and richness of its coloring.

Unlike the picture on the easel, this altar piece is sketched upon a pearl gray background, the only completed figure in it being the central Madonna, the likeness of Guy’s love.

The girl stands posed in virgin beauty; her white, blue-veined feet rest light as a fairy’s on a rainbow of softest sunlight; her form, outlined with all the beauty curves of woman, but full of maiden grace and lightness, draped by robe of softest clinging white, and decked with floating azure mantle. Above the ivory throat is the face of exquisite brunette beauty, those soft though shining eyes, those lips of coral red, those cheeks of changing lilies and roses that made Guy’s heart beat so madly before, and make it beat so madly now.

The whole, deified by the grand soul that shines out from the lovely face, backgrounded by and floating upon sun rays, and full of those wondrous effects of golden light and deep warm shadow peculiar to the school of the Venetian Tintoretto, makes Guy very eager; for it is the breathing, speaking portrait of the woman he loves, yet still is not equal to her.

For this is but one view of her mobile loveliness, and the night before she had given him a different effect, a varied expression, a new rapture, each time he had gazed upon her changing, vivacious, yet always noble beauty.

He cries impatiently to the painter: “You don’t answer my question. You only show me what makes me more hungry for her name. Tell me who she is?”

The answer that comes startles him, dismays him. “She is,” says Oliver, sighing his words, “the only thing upon this earth that Alva loves!”

“No, no, I’ll not believe,” gasps Chester.

“You must! She is the only thing he adores, the only being to whom the Viceroy of Spain ever gives the loving ‘thou’.”

“I can’t believe you,” cries the Englishman, clenching [[59]]his hands in agony. “She is too pure to be the love of any one, least of all of that fiend.”

“She is not too pure,” says the painter slowly, “to be his daughter.”

“His DAUGHTER? Saints above us!”

“Yes, Hermoine de Alva is the Duke’s natural daughter. Her mother, the Countess di Perugia, an Italian lady, of great beauty, died four years ago. Since then the Duke has given Doña Hermoine his own name. She is the purest, sweetest, noblest flower that Spain has ever sent to the Netherlands. Her mind is as bright, her intellect as strong, as her father’s, but her heart is as tender as his is cruel. Still, she is the daughter of Alva, and as such, my Englishman, I fear your love is hopeless! Beware! Your brother loved a Spanish girl!”

To this Guy answers nothing. In a flash he feels the truth of the painter’s last crushing remark. But a moment after Anglo-Saxon pluck springs up again in him, and he mutters:

“By heaven! what a triumph to pluck the thing Alva loves most out of his hands; to make his own daughter that he prizes the most of anything on this earth the bride, the honored bride, of the man upon whose head he has placed three thousand carolus guilders reward—the sea pirate—‘The First of the English.’ ” and he bursts out into mocking, triumphant, but loving laughter.

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER V.

“THE LION’S JAWS GAPE FOR ME!”

“Bravo!” cries the Fleming, “Bravo! But first she must love you.”

“I’ll make her love me,” exclaims Chester, looking at the ruby ring upon his finger that seems to him not the red light of danger, but the beacon of Cupid.

“Well, I’m glad you are so confident. I wish I were equally so.” the painter sighs; then goes on energetically: [[60]]“But now to business. You cannot linger over your love-making. Queen Elizabeth must be warned of the plots against her life, and of Ridolfi, the Italian banker in London.”

“Oh, we’ll take good care of him,” says Guy, savagely. “I must join my ship this evening and sail for England, and to do this I must get the words of to-night so I can pass the gates of the town after sunset.”

“Why not leave at once?”

“Because,” answers the Englishman, “you have not yet given me the translation of those letters. That will take you some time.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I shall not make the translation; I shall simply give you the key to the cipher, then they can be interpreted in England, and any other letters of this correspondence that may come into your hands will be equally readable by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers. It will save you many dangerous visits here.” With this the artist sits down and writes in a few minutes the explanation of the cipher.

Then saying: “Place that with the letters,” he gives it to Guy, smiles at him, and murmurs: “Now I should think you would be in a hurry to leave, with that price upon your head.”

“I’m not going until to-night,” answers Chester, almost surlily. “The evening tide will serve as well for my vessel—it will not delay me much. Besides—” here he catches sight of the painter’s face in quizzical smile, and cries out: “Gadzooks, man! you don’t think I’m going to leave Antwerp without seeing her again.” He waves his hand toward the divine beauty of the face upon the canvas lighted up by the morning sun, and shining upon him not only with heavenly, but with earthly, love—at least so this audacious young man imagines.

“Ah! going to ask papa for the young lady?” jeers the painter.

“Not yet, though I have a letter of introduction to him,” remarks Guy, piqued into producing the billet given to him by Doña Hermoine the evening before, the one addressed to Alva, Viceroy of Spain. [[61]]

“And you haven’t opened it?” queries Oliver, examining the missive.

“Certainly not; it is sealed.”

“Ah! my boy,” rejoins the painter, “you have too difficult a game to play to be over scrupulous. You must know how you stand with this lady before you attempt to see her again.” Then he horrifies Guy, for he says: “You have powerful rivals; General Niorcarmesis looked upon not altogether unfavorably by the lady’s father, in whose confidence that officer stands very high.”

“A rival?” falters Guy.

“A rival? A host of rivals! Do you pay your beautiful inamorata so poor a compliment as to think she has charmed no other man than you? Every one is bowing down to the beauty and the wit of the Countess Hermoine de Alva—generals and nobles.” Then he continues commandingly: “You must open this letter. The game you are playing forces you to use every card. It is apparently not a confidential communication, and must apply to you, for she told you to deliver it with your own hand.”

While he is speaking, and before Guy can interpose, Oliver has rapidly lighted a taper, passed the letter over it with the deft hand of one accustomed to such business, and is presenting it, seal removed, open to the inspection of the Englishman.

“Read it you must,” he says. “Your life might be the forfeit of too strained an honor. Read it! Some day you may be compelled from the exigencies of the case to deliver this to Alva. In your position you should know what it contains. Read it, or I have no further communication with you.”

“Why not?” mutters Guy, who, though desperately anxious to see the handwriting of his sweetheart, still holds out.

“Because,” says the painter, solemnly, “this is a game in which both you and I have put up our lives as the stake; and I play everything in my hand. You must do the same, for my sake as well as yours. If I communicate with you, if I am seen in your company, and you are arrested, perhaps I fall with you. Besides, we owe it to our countries to use every weapon that God throws into our hands. READ!” [[62]]

While saying this he has opened the delicately scented billet, which has only been held together by its seal, and is suspending it before the eyes of the Englishman, which become radiant with hope as they read this short but pithy note in the very prettiest of feminine handwriting:

“Dear Papa:

“Please make the bearer of this, Captain Guido, of Romero’s foot, my rescuer from the Beggars of the Sea (though he is too modest to give me any other name) a Colonel as soon as possible, and then give him a chance to make himself a General, and oblige, your loving

Hermoine.”

Rapture and pride are too great in the Englishman for him to avoid showing this note to his friend and mentor.

“By Saint Denis!” cries Oliver, inspecting the missive, “I believe she does love you. If you have hit her heart you’re the first, and she has had half of Spain at her feet, I’m told.” Then, looking over the young man, he adds contemplatively: “It must be your peculiar blonde ferocity that has done it. If you had been a brunette Adonis, I wouldn’t have given a stiver for your chance. Dark eyed dandies about here are as plentiful as windmills.”

“With this in my hand can I fail to make the attempt to see her before I go?” says Guy stoutly, securing the missive with a lover’s care in the breast of his doublet.

“Apparently you will not, no matter what I say,” smiles the artist. Then he goes on earnestly and solemnly: “But let me give you a little advice. Under no circumstances; no matter how much she loves you; no matter if she swears to you she adores you better than all else in this world, do you tell her your secret.”

“You think she would betray me?”

“No! A thousand times no!”

“You think it might destroy her love for me?”

“Not if she loved you before. Hermoine de Alva once true, will be forever true.”

“Then why should I fear to tell her?”

“For this reason. She knows how much her father loves her. She has no fear of the human tiger; to her his claws are always velvet. By this note you can tell that Doña Hermoine thinks her word is law with the [[63]]dictator of the Netherlands. So it is in little things!—a diamond necklace, a dozen new dresses, even the discarding of a suitor; for if she says no, that is the end of the gentleman with her father also. But in matters of State policy she has never run against him. She does not know that in affairs of government, in upholding his own laws, edicts and proclamations, Alva is ice and iron together. What I fear is that you may one day be persuaded to go with her and tell the dictator your story, and she will tell papa that she loves you, assured that he will spare you and pardon you and put you up on high for her sake; but for God’s sake don’t ever deceive yourself about Alva’s mercy. If you do, you are lost. Her tears, her prayers, will never save you. Remember that, my Guido, who are in love with the tiger’s cub!”

“Why should you call her that?” cries Guy savagely.

“I should not call her that,” returns the painter sadly. “She has been all condescension and kindness to me; she has permitted me to take her beautiful face and put it on my canvas, to give me a chance for fame and immortality.”

“Ah! she has granted you sittings here?”

“Yes, with her duenna present.”

“Then arrange an interview for me this afternoon here.”

“It would do you no good. She would not come without attendants. Do not think that Hermoine de Alva will forget any point of etiquette, even though she adores you—of which you seem to be very confident.”

“But I must arrange a meeting. I’ll kill two birds with one stone. She will know the words of the night. From her I can obtain them. She will come to me, I know,” says Guy very confidently. “You can gain admission to her as the under-secretary of Alva. Do so to-day. Give her this ring;” he takes the beautiful ruby from his finger and puts it into the painter’s hand.

“Mon Dieu! You have exchanged rings—did kisses go with them?” laughs Oliver; and as a flaming blush appears upon Guy’s face, he mutters: “Parbleu! I believe they have. Talk about Italian passion! It is as ice to you wonderful English.” Getting no answer from Chester he continues: “I can arrange an interview to-day, [[64]]but it cannot be here. The duenna would stand in the path of any tête-à-tête between you. The only way I can think of private word for you with your love, you fortunate young man—you unfortunate young man—is at the house of the man I hope one day to call ‘papa.’ ”

“The burgomaster, Niklaas Bodé Volcker?” exclaims Guy.

“Yes. On the plea of rare bargains in silks that have been slightly damaged by the flood Doña Hermoine can bring her duenna into the town. At the merchant’s you can speak privately with Doña de Alva.”

“But the duenna—the infernal duenna?” growls Chester.

“The duenna will be made blind and harmless in the next room inspecting bargains. If we arrange to have Bodé Volcker’s stock low enough, the Countess de Pariza is good for an hour of rapture and bargains. Besides, they will probably be coming in to-day to learn the talk of the town, about the great drinking bout between”—here the painter flushes with indignation—“between the man who disgraces his genius and his art, by intemperance, and the Six Drunkards of Brussels. You have seen it placarded on the walls of the inns and wine houses, bearing the name of the greatest artist the Netherlands has yet produced, the Raphael of the North, the man whose disciple I was, the man whose altar piece in the great Church of Our Dear Lady would have made him renowned forever had it not been burnt by the Iconoclasts four years ago, when they threw down all the images of the church, and destroyed innumerable masterpieces of art, in blind rage at the Inquisition. I and another old pupil of Floris’s saved that night one picture of his, a smaller one, ‘The Fall of the Angels;’ it is not his best work; in fact, it is very much beneath his genius, but it is the one thing of his that will go down to posterity, for now he has become a sot and a drunkard,” and Oliver sighs.

“Very well,” cries Guy, breaking in upon the artist’s indignant rhapsody, during which he has remembered he has not eaten since he has risen. “Now having finished our business, perhaps when Achille returns with the provisions you will give me a little breakfast, [[65]]perchance a little pigeon pie, eh?” and he playfully pokes the painter in the ribs, for Antony’s remarks about Hermoine de Alva have made this audacious young man very jovially happy.

It is a laughing remark, but the laugh dies away as Guy sees its extraordinary effect upon the Flemish painter. At the words “pigeon pie” Oliver’s face grows pale. He turns and says suspiciously: “What do you know about pigeon pie?”

“Only what I heard last evening from little Marvedie, son of Touraine the barber.”

“What did he say about pigeon pie?” asks the painter, whose manner begins to impress Guy, as he mutters; “Speak quick—our lives may depend upon it!”

“Only this,” says the Englishman, “that when you were here he had plenty of pigeon pie. He asked me if I liked pigeon pie, and then afterward—I think, yes, I am almost positive, he said perhaps he wouldn’t have so much pigeon pie now, as a man had taken away so many pigeons.”

“A man—taken away so many pigeons—from here!” falters Antony. Then he suddenly exclaims: “That explains why there were no letters from Louis of Nassau in my cote above—no pigeons bearing them. I thought it was curious; I was nervous. My God! I must know.”

Just then a rap coming upon the door he draws aside the curtain and opens it, confronting his apprentice Achille, a bright-eyed French youth, who says discontentedly: “I can’t get anything without the cash. Our great artist, Frans Floris, owes so much money that no other artists can buy anything for credit.”

“Very well, put down your basket. I’ll see if I can get you some money,” says Oliver meditatively. Then a sudden idea seems to come to him, he cries: “Achille, where is little Marvedie? Bring him up, and we’ll send out and get some pigeons, and have some pigeon pie for him,” affecting great lightness of manner, though with evident effort.

“All right. Marvedie is death on pigeon pie, and so am I,” says the youth, and flies downstairs.

“I must question him,” murmurs the painter. “If [[66]]this is true, the sword suspended by the hair is about to fall.”

A moment later and the laughing voices of childhood are heard on the stairs, Achille and his little brother bound into the room, crying: “Pigeon pie! pigeon pie! Hurrah for Monsieur Oliver’s pigeon pie!”

“Yes, pigeon pie,” cries the painter, “pigeon pie. But what has become of my pigeons? Have you taken them, Achille?”

“No!”

“Were there any flying about the cote? Not those in the coop, but in the cote—around in the air flying?” The artist’s voice has become hoarse—his eyes terrible.

“Oh yes, a good many, for the last day or two,” answers the boy. Then noting his master’s manner, he screams out: “But I have not taken them, I swear to heaven, Monsieur Oliver, I have never taken any from the cote. On the word of an honest boy—do not discharge me!”

“No, he didn’t take any,” cries little Marvedie; “a big tall man with nasty black eyes took them away.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did you see him? How do you know?”

“Oh, I remember him because he laughed and seemed very happy, and gave me two stivers to get him a bag to put them in.”

“Can you tell anything about him? Do you know his name, little Marvedie—little pigeon pie Marvedie?” gasps Antony, attempting a grimace, with a face that is like a death mask.

“No, but he was ugly and had nasty eyes, eyes that looked like the codfish they sell in the market.”

“How many pigeons did this man take away? Did you count them, little Marvedie—little pigeon pie Marvedie?” and the painter achieves a ghastly chuckle.

“Yes, there were six, with bunches on their beaks and eyes that looked back and front. The kind whose necks you wring when you give me pigeon pie,” says the little child.

“And where was your brother?” The painter’s voice is low and stern. [[67]]

“Oh, I was out trying to sell one of your pictures,” says Achille. “At least I think I was. That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since you went away, but they’re all here yet. The Duke’s tenth penny is ruining everybody. No body has any money to spare, at least not for works of art.”

“Very well,” sighs Antony, “here’s a florin. Yes, get the pigeons!” he laughs dismally. “We’ll have the pigeon pie.”

The two boys run away. The painter’s face is white as his own chalk, and he falters. “At last it has come. Some one has my secret.”

“What secret” mutters Guy, half guessing.

“The letters brought to me by carrier pigeons from Louis of Nassau, with whom I am in correspondence for the benefit of the Netherlands. Of course they are in cipher, they cannot be construed in a moment; but the hair has been cut, the sword is descending, I am no better than a dead man; worse than that—I am a tortured man! Oh, my God! think of the rack, the faggot, that await me!” and the Fleming’s eyes become bloodshot, his cheeks gray, and his lips blue.

“If we could discover the man who has your secret,” says the Englishman, prompt to action, well knowing that danger to Oliver now means danger to himself.

“Ah! but how? When Alva arrives the man will surely give him the information; it would be very valuable, warning of a traitor in the Duke’s own corresponding bureau. I—I had been anxious all the morning. When I—I arrived here I expected to find the pigeons with the letters tied to their tails from Louis. Now I know—the reason. Six! Six letters—each one of them enough to send me to the slow fire!” moans the painter, striking his hands together till his finger nails are blue.

“Six! Six pigeons!” echoes Guy. Then he suddenly cries: “Do you know a man with dark, fishy eyes, such as the boy described, and a black mustache with one single, whitish gray lock in it?”

“My God!” cries the artist. “I do. He—you have told me who—Vasco de Guerra—my enemy! He has—has my letters!—What gave you the clue?”

“Only this, that Vasco de Guerra, at supper last night, [[68]]gave to the Six Drunkards of Brussels, who have come here for the drinking bout with Floris, a pigeon pie containing six pigeons which he asserted he had shot with his cross-bow, but he spoke of the seventh, declaring for the head of the seventh he would receive such a reward that would enable him to give a great banquet to his comrades.”

With this Guy tells the astounded Oliver what he saw and heard at the carouse of the Six Drunkards of Brussels in the Painted Inn the night before.

“Yes, that’s proof enough, proof that he has my secret—he of all men, he who is sure to use it—this Vasco de Guerra is my enemy. He is a miserable scamp, disreputable enough to be cashiered from the Spanish army—think what that must be, when soldiers are permitted to beg, steal, murder, torture and ravage without one word of rebuke from their officers. What must a man be who is cast out from such troops as this? He is a drunken fortune hunter; he seeks the hand of Mina Bodé Volcker, who loves me. He has her maid, Wiarda Schwartz in his pay.”

“Aha!” returns Guy. “That is the reason she treated me so cavalierly when I asked for you last night.”

“Wiarda? Yes, miserable little paid soubrette. But we must think—we must act—and that quickly,” returns the painter, who seems to have regained composure, now that he knows his betrayer. “Vasco must guess the value of these letters, for he must have been upon my scent for weeks. He will try to decipher them himself, for he will not wish to trust the information to others who might obtain the reward for it. He can hardly act to-day. He doubtless keeps them on his person.”

“In that case we must kill him at once,” says Guy. “That’s what we’ve got to do. We must kill him for both our sakes. At all events, we must have the papers. Send for him, get him here, and I will do his business with a dirk. Then we can carry him out and toss him into the flood. He’ll float away to the ocean. There are plenty of drowned carcasses like his, so it will not be noticed.”

“No,” says the painter, “that might bring suspicion upon us. Perhaps I can suggest a better way,” and [[69]]begins to think, racking his subtle Flemish brain as it has never been racked before. Ten seconds and he cries out, hope in voice, joy in his eyes: “At the drinking bout Floris is sure to win. Floris will drink every one of the Six Drunkards of Brussels under the table, insensible, inert, lifeless. In the confusion we can assist the insensible Vasco from the table, take him to a room apparently to revive him, and steal from him the letters he has stolen from me.”

“But if Vasco wins?”

“Impossible! I’ve seen Floris drink more wine at one sitting than any other human beast on earth, I think, can hold and live.”

“But we must be prepared in case he does not,” says the Englishman; then he adds slowly: “Perhaps I can aid you; I have here,” he produces from his breast a small glass flagon of Venetian manufacture, this is protected from breakage by golden filigree work and its stopper carefully sealed, in it is a colorless, limpid fluid.

“What is it? Poison?” asks the painter. “The poison of the Borgias?”

“No, the poison of the Antilles. This is the juice of the Manchineel tree, prepared by the Indians of the Carrabees, after some secret process of their own. You know the wonderful properties of the tree; to sleep under it even for the night is death. It is peculiarly volatile, therefore I keep it sealed. I have carried this with me in case I should be captured and given over to the rack, to make me sleep so that my tortured lips can tell no secrets of my Queen. If it should happen that the painter doesn’t drink Vasco de Guerra insensible and inert, a few drops of this in his flagon will make the Spanish spy sleep forever.”

“Then if Frans Floris doesn’t succeed—the poison of the Antilles,” mutters the painter. “It is his life or ours.” After a second’s thought he continues: “I must kill mine enemy Vasco anyway. Were he only made insensible, even did I recover the letters of Louis of Nassau, he would still suspect me. Some day he would get other proof. If I don’t kill him now I must fly at once, and William the Silent will have no spy at Alva’s elbow. For my country’s cause, I stay here. [[70]]At the drinking bout Vasco de Guerra dies. The lion’s jaws gape for me. By heaven, they shall not close!”

“That’s well said,” returns Guy, briefly. “Put a dose of this into the Spanish spy.”

He presses the flagon of Manchineel poison into the painter’s hand, but suddenly looks doubtful, and asks anxiously this pertinent question: “How, by all the saints, will you get this into Vasco’s drinking cup and not into the flagons of the others?”

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VI.

THE DRINKING BOUT AT THE PAINTED INN.

This question seems to stagger the artist. He mutters feebly, “How?” then says: “Let me think. I know the customs of this country,” and meditates with knitted brows.

A few moments thought and he cries: “I have solved the problem.”

“How?” asks the Englishman eagerly.

“How? Why, it is the usage at these drinking bouts when the banquet is at its height for friends of the combatants, for the honor of Bacchus, to send huge drinking beakers full of the finest wine with their compliments to the various contestants. Vasco de Guerra is a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle Bodé Volcker, the fair Mina that I love. That shall be his destruction. After the tenth round, it would not be prudent before—perhaps in his case I had better make it the fifteenth huge goblet that he drinks—I shall send to him a flagon of wine containing this, the poison of the Antilles,” he taps the vial the Englishman has given him, “with the compliments of Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker. De Guerra will not refuse a wine cup with such a message as this, and then—, then—you and I,” he whispers this last, “my dear Guido, in some quiet, happy, peaceful country would be called murderers; but here we are simply playing out the game of life and death. Now to business.” [[71]]

The two now go to mapping out their plan with the cool precision of men who, having made up their minds, act rapidly upon their resolutions.

“The drinking bout will take place at twelve. It is now ten o’clock. I don’t think De Guerra has yet risen,” says Guy, “but I’ll watch him to see that he doesn’t leave the inn to give your secret to any one. If he makes any effort toward this, by some means I will detain him; while you, my dear friend, go to the Citadel, get word with the lady Hermoine, and arrange the meeting that is necessary, not only to my safety but to my love.”

Then, while Chester secures upon his person the cipher letters of Vitelli and the key furnished by the artist, and perchance with even greater care deposits in his bosom the miniature and letter of his love, Antony Oliver arms himself with sword and pistols and looks carefully to the keen Italian stiletto he always wears ready to his hand.

This done, the two go out together, Oliver leaving word with the barber that his sons can get their meal for themselves when they return, but that Achille is to meet them at the Painted Inn at the hour of noon. Then striding through the narrow alleys into which the sun is but now finding its way, the two pass to the pleasanter portion of the town.

Here the painter takes leave of the Englishman, whispering: “Don’t lose sight of Vasco.”

“While you will do my errand?” suggests Chester wistfully.

“Certainly. I have a good excuse for my interview with Doña Hermoine. Her father only leaves Brussels at noon to-day. Alva will not be here until late this evening, and would wish word of this given to his daughter,” answers Oliver, and takes his way toward the Esplanade, beyond which lies the Citadel.

Going once more to the Painted Inn, Chester discovers that it is now the scene of unusual animation.

The wine room is crowded so that he can hardly get a seat to order his breakfast, appetite having by this time obtained temporary ascendency over love. By some deft questioning and pumping of the waiter who attends him, the Englishman soon learns that the man [[72]]he is in search of only left his late carouse at three o’clock in the morning, and has not yet arisen; probably thinking that retirement will best fit him for a supremely great feat at the shrine of Bacchus.

The conversation at the neighboring tables naturally turns upon the drinking bout. The room is full of burghers and artists, some of whom have come to enjoy the artist’s triumph, others to sorrow at the genius that is being killed with wine. There is also a goodly delegation of his creditors, who are here with anxiety in their hearts and on their lips, for Frans Floris’s life is worth a large sum to them on account of the paintings his facile brush creates; but Frans Floris dead is of very little use to them, and they fear that some day he will kill himself by the enormous quantity of wine he may imbibe in his effort to place his competitors beneath the table.

“Ah, Mijn Heer Dirk Coornhert, this is a sad day,” remarks a fat, adipose citizen, whose smell of the malt-house proclaims the brewer.

“Yes,” replies a man evidently of artistic tastes and education. “Have you seen the poem I’ve printed to warn Floris of the danger of his dissolute habits, not only to his genius but to his life? I read it to him last night. It was an inspiration in which I depicted a dream wherein the spirit of Albert Durer appeared to me and spoke in melancholy and ghostly tones of the spirit sadness that was brought to him even after a hundred years in the other world by an artist of Floris’s ability becoming a drunkard.”

“And did it reform him?” jeers the other.

“Reform him!” cries Dirk Coornhert. “No, he swore he’d drink the health of Albert Durer’s ghost to-day, and laughed in my face: ‘When I’m drunk, I’m happy; I forget my creditors. When I’m sober my creditors don’t let me forget them.’ ”

“Verdomd! And I’m one of them,” growls the brewer. “Two thousand carolus guilders for malt beer consumed at his house. A painter building the greatest palace in Antwerp! Above its portal that drunken conceit he’s painted: himself standing brush in hand and the muses flying from all over the heavens to crown him. And out of it he drives each day with four white [[73]]horses in state, everybody doffing their hats to him, his creditors bowing most humbly of all. If I didn’t think the populace would mob me, I’d have him in the debtors’ prison. And then his wife! Faugh! her dandy airs—as if she were a countess.”

“Yes, she has ruined him,” murmurs the painter. “A woman’s ambition to flaunt it with the noblesse, which a painter cannot do, though some of our burghers seem to think it an easy task. There’s poor Bodé Volcker! Have you heard of his daughter? They say the fair Wilhelmina aspires to consort with the nobility, and has been taught to shake her feet under the rod of a French dancing master and play on the harpsichord and spinet, and sing with rare shakes and quavers and high-screeching notes like a lewd Italian masquer. Ah! the days of Antwerp are changing. What would her poor mother say? But old Niklaas is up in arms, and swears his daughter shall go into his shop and sell his silks and satins behind his counter, as her mother did, though they say he’s worth a million crowns or more.”

“Donder en Bliksem!” growls the brewer, “what’s a million crowns, or two million, either, now—it’s only so much more for the accursed tenth penny tax to eat up.”

“Yes, God help every one,” assents the printer. “The tenth penny tax will in time take all we have.”

Then the brewer shakes his head sadly over a mug of strongest Flemish ale and the printer sips his Rhine wine in silence; for Alva has just levied his celebrated tenth penny tax, which decrees that every transfer of merchandise in the Netherlands shall yield one-tenth of its amount to the royal treasury, each and every time it is bought or sold. This, of course, on active business means ultimately complete confiscation and absolute ruin to the great trading classes of Brabant, Flanders and Holland.

This tenth penny tax does not make the crowd very loving to the smattering of Spanish and Italian officers of the garrison, who stride about with jingling spurs and clattering swords and armor, caring very little whether they tread on burghers’ toes or not, and burying every now and then their fiercely curled mustachios [[74]]in flagons of Spanish wine, mine host and his assistants serving them with greatest deference and humility; for Antwerp writhed and groaned, but still lay prone under the iron heel of Spanish military rule—from noble to peasant, from merchant to fisherman.

Among these military gallants none swagger more proudly than Ensign de Busaco. Seeing Guy, this ferocious little dandy strides over, and, slapping the Englishman cordially on the shoulder, cries: “What do you wager, Capitan Guido, on the drinking bout? I am offering even doubloons on the Drunkards of Brussels.”

“That’s hardly fair,” says Guy, “six drunkards to one drunkard. But sit down, and remember your promise of last night to join me in a friendly beaker.”

“Gracios, Señor Capitan,” murmurs the young officer, and soon he and Chester are chatting over the juice of the grape.

“You have come, I suppose, from the Middelburg garrison,” remarks the Spaniard, “to see about your back pay. We haven’t had a stiver here, one of us, for a good many months, and I imagine you are no better off. But the tenth penny, my boy, will open up the paymaster’s department of the army If it doesn’t—” he looks savagely round, “we intend to take things into our own hands. This is a rich city, eh, for looting; the spoils of the Indies and Peru right here within our grasp. Some day we’ll make mincemeat of these burghers and take their goods and chattels and wives and daughters into our keeping for a day or two, eh! Booty and beauty!”

“God help them,” thinks Guy, looking round the place, and into his mind coming a vision of that awful “Spanish Fury” that broke forth on Antwerp a few years afterwards. But he turns the conversation, murmuring: “Of course we haven’t been paid, but still I have a few doubloons in my pocket!” then cries: “Boy, another flask of wine!”

This the two discuss together, the Spaniard telling the Englishman that, though Floris is owned to be the greatest wine bibber in the world, it is thought that the Six Drunkards of Brussels have some extraordinary plan for defeating him, at least so it is whispered about, and [[75]]that if he has any money to venture on the game, to put it against the artist.

“They’ll win, my boy,” he laughs. “I’ve seen little Tomasito himself drink eighteen flagons and never flinch a hair. Fancy what he will do when stimulated by the magnificent banquet that is going in there,” he points to the great wedding room at the rear, “and with the chance of winning five hundred guilders and side bets as well. Besides, De Guerra has been strangely happy for the last day, and he is never chuckling except when he sees the ducats ahead. But I think I can get a bet from Valdes, of our regiment. He has seen Floris drink, and swears that no man under heaven is his equal. Excuse me on this little matter of business,” and Ensign de Busaco rises and joins a group of Spanish officers at the other end of the room, much to Guy’s pleasure, for he sees that the painter, Antony Oliver, has returned and is anxiously looking at him.

As the Spaniard turns his back the Flemish artist is by Chester’s side whispering: “I have done your errand.”

“She will come?”

“Yes, but I had great difficulty. She was as chilly as an iceberg at first, asking how I dared bring such an audacious message.”

“And then?” queries Guy eagerly.

“Then I gave her the ring and told her that it was necessary for your safety that she meet you; that you had periled yourself coming to this town for her escort when you were absent from your garrison without leave.”

“What next?” says Chester.

“Next she said nonchalantly: ‘I shall be at the house of the burgher Bodé Volcker at three o’clock this day. My duenna, the Countess de Pariza, thinks she would like to see the merchant’s daughter dance again.’ ”

“Anything else?” mutters Guy, discontentedly.

“Oh, yes, she also remarked that her duenna would probably spend some of her time, as she usually did, cheapening the silks, laces and velvets in the merchant’s stock, while she would remain in the burgomaster’s house and enjoy herself with the arts and graces of Señorita Wilhelmina. ‘Where you will be, too, I suppose?’ [[76]]she laughed, ‘Señor Oliver, and, perchance, the gentleman whose messenger and envoy you are. Have you transferred your service from my father to the Capitan Guido?’ At this,” says Oliver, with a slight chuckle, “I had the audacity to remark, ‘Perhaps it may be all in the family,’ and left her as red as the ruby ring she was holding in her hand.”

This makes Chester flush with delight, and the room which had been dark and gloomy to him at the painter’s first words, is very sunny and bright.

A moment after it is brighter still, as Oliver remarks: “I never saw Hermoine de Alva blush at the mention of a human being before. Neither do I think, my audacious gallant, there is a man in this world, saving her own father, to whom she would accord a meeting. But you’d better stop drinking,” he adds, “or you’ll be considered one of the Drunkards of Brussels yourself, and we’ve something more than a drinking bout on hand. Come, they are going in, I see my enemy and know he has my fate in his hands.” He looks anxiously across the room, for there stands Vasco, surrounded by his five fellow topers, all bearing the arms of Brussels on their doublets.

As De Guerra’s eyes meet those of Oliver a smile of cruel triumph lights them up, and, with one quick, perchance unconscious, gesture, his hand goes to his bosom, as if to reassure himself that something very precious to him is still safe and ready.

“See that movement?” whispers Guy to Antony. “That’s to be certain of the letters that are your ruin if you don’t get them now!”

“And will,” gasps the painter, though his hand trembles slightly, as he feels to make sure on his part that he has the poison of the Antilles.

With this the two join the surging throng that is now squeezing into the great painted room at the rear of the inn, in which the grand weddings of Antwerp are celebrated. This is now set apart for the banquet which is to test the drinking powers of Antwerp’s genius and the Brussels’ society for the prevention of intemperance—by drinking up all the liquor in the world themselves. [[77]]

A minute later there is a wild cry—“He has come!” the people turning from the dining-room and rushing toward the entrance of the house to see De Vriendt, the artist, riding up upon his white horse, followed by six of his pupils.

This gives Guy and Oliver an easier entrance to the banquet room, of which they take advantage, finding themselves in a high, heavily studded apartment, with beautifully carved balustrades and roof beams, the walls decorated by paintings and frescoes, some of them from the brush of the contesting artist himself.

In the center is a large oaken table, with seats for seven, covered with everything that can increase the thirst and appetite for wine—salt fish, caviare, and viands steeped in oil, which is supposed to develop the capacity of man for liquor—all these decorated and arranged in highest style of Netherland garniture; for there are flowers on the table, and a wreath of roses with which to crown the victor. The whole is a horrible hurly-burly of art, mediæval luxury and barbaric vice.

Six seats about the board are occupied by the Drunkards of Brussels, Vasco de Guerra sitting at the foot of the table as manager and captain of his band of topers. Each man has before him an immense silver frankforter or beaker glass holding a quantity of wine that would put a temperance society in convulsions of righteous indignation.

The seat at the head of the table is reserved for the one man who contests against the many; the glory of Antwerp; the great genius who is going to drown it in drink; the great toper who, in honor of his city and a wager of five hundred guilders, is going to drink these six other topers under the table; while all around this board dedicated to gluttony and to Bacchus stands a melange of the masculine society of the town, from Spanish General Vargas to little Ensign de Busaco; from the fat merchant prince to the brawny representative of the Butchers’ Guild—even to little Achille Touraine, who comes crawling and sneaking in between the legs of the assembly to reach his [[78]]master, getting viciously kicked and spurred in this business by several dandy officers whose uniforms he disarranges in his transit.

“I am here as you directed, Monsieur Oliver,” he pants. “That is, part of me—one of the officer’s spurs lanced me like my father does his bleeding patients, and my face has been scraped as papa does his shaving customers. But I—I couldn’t get here before, it took so long for Marvedie and me to eat the last of the pigeon pie.”

Here the boy’s voice is drowned by the buzz that greets the entrance of the painter; as De Vriendt comes striding in, his pale Flemish face and mild blue eyes lighted with a convivial smile, while tossing his hat on high he cries: “Welcome, brother junketers of Brussels!” taking his seat at the head of the table.

This is responded to in kind, little Tomasito remarking: “Greeting, brother pig of Antwerp.” A sally of mediæval wit, that makes the crowd roar with laughter, though Floris’s pale face grows red with humiliation—for one moment.

The next he has forgotten all save the pleasure of the wine cup, for a serving man places before him an immense Frankforter of strongest Markobrunner, and in the love of the liquor he forgets his love of the esteem of his fellows and townsmen. Rising from his chair he calls out: “Let us begin, Drunkards of Brussels. The terms of the wager are settled. I drink every one of you under the table, and leave you all there.”

“Those are the terms, Señor Floris,” murmurs De Guerra, a snicker in his voice, and the six topers stand up, each man in his place, and each with flagon in his hand, filled to the brim with the same strong wine that faces De Vriendt.

“Then DOWN!” cries Floris, and each man tosses off his ration with a smack of delight, at which the crowd cries bravo.

But the contestants have hardly seated themselves and got pick at caviare or salted herring or potted anchovy, when the attendants have refilled their beakers, and Floris shouts: “Again!” [[79]]

With this they rise once more, and down flies the Rhenish wine; then take to eating—for with drunkenness goes gluttony.

So the drinking bout goes on, viewed with varying faces by the crowd, the excitement growing higher; but none have faces like Guy Chester and Antony Oliver, for none, not even the greatest gambler in the town, has so high a stake at risk upon this battle of giants at the shrine of Bacchus.

All the time the crowd gets greater, and dogs creep snarling in—they have scented the feast, and hope for bones and pickings—and the dresses of women can be seen in the great balcony used by musicians at the wedding banquets, that stands at the further end of the hall; and friends commence to send flagons of wine with their compliments and good wishes to the various contestants.

But the drinking is even, flagon for flagon, each man tossing off his goblet at the same moment with the others, and then calling for another—though sometimes the brand of wine is changed to stimulate their appetites by varying flavors. Rothenberger has succeeded Markobrunner and been displaced by Hochheimer.

It is the tenth round. Seven immense silver mugs of strongest Rhine wine are just passing the lips and sizzling down the gullets of the contestants.

“At the fifteenth,” whispers Oliver.

“Why not do it now?” says Guy in his ear.

“No, it wouldn’t be prudent before the fifteenth,” returns the painter. “No one would believe that ten goblets would be the death of him.”

A minute or two and the twelfth turn has passed, and after drinking this one of the contestants, the little weazened Italian, Guisseppi Pisa, attempting to rise from his chair—staggers, and goes down quietly under the table.

“Do it now,” whispers Guy.

“I dare not—not yet,” returns Oliver.

The thirteenth round is quaffed amid laughter and cheers, and as De Guerra takes the goblet from his lips, Oliver’s face grows white and drawn, and Guy’s also, for to their horror they see the man they intended to [[80]]poison at the fifteenth round, reel and fall insensible beneath the table.

“Too late! My God, he’s escaped me,” falters Antony.

“We can get the documents anyway, from his insensible carcass when the bout is over,” mutters the Englishman, recovering first.

“Yes, but that is only postponing my destruction. Vasco’s suspicions are aroused—the torture chamber gapes for me. I shall have to fly. I can no longer do the work I had laid out for myself.” This is sighed from white lips.

But another shout goes up from the surrounding crowd; at the fourteenth round two of the remaining Drunkards of Brussels have gone down. Two more are left for the painter to vanquish, but these are very tough ones. De Vriendt smiles in triumph; his Flemish face, though red and flushed, appears mocking now; but his legs are a little shaky.

Thus four more rounds pass; another of the Drunkards of Brussels joins the company of those beneath the table. Now only one, little Tomasito, is standing up for the ducats his friends have wagered upon him, and the honor of the capital; when suddenly (for Guy has turned away his head, only awaiting his opportunity at the finish of the bout to rob De Guerra of the papers, and cares but little who wins the contest) the Englishman feels his sleeve plucked, and looking up, sees Antony’s eyes blazing.

“He’s recovering!” whispers Oliver.

“Who?”

“Vasco! See him! He is staggering up to his feet again. He will win the bout. It’s a trick—a trick to gain the advantage of so many flagons over De Vriendt.”

This is the feeling of Floris’s friends; and when De Guerra, staggering up, shouts: “Another stoup of Rhine wine for the Drunkards of Brussels,” they interpose and engage in angry altercation.

But De Vriendt says: “I give him the advantage of five flagons, I will finish him up also.”

Another round is quaffed. Before it little Tomasito goes down as if struck by a cannon ball, leaving only [[81]]De Guerra and Floris standing fronting each other, looking in each other’s faces, one with the smile of the Fleming, the other filled with that curious rage peculiar to the Spaniard, who, when excited, becomes savage in everything—savage in war, savage in play, savage in love.

Each pours down another beaker, and Floris is reeling.

“Now’s your last chance,” whispers Guy.

Calling a waiter Antony says: “A flagon of your strongest Rhine wine at once.”

While De Vriendt and the Spaniard are appetizing themselves for another bout, one eating caviare savagely and the other lovingly dallying with some pickled cod’s livers, to give him greater thirst, is the opportunity of Oliver.

The waiter, pouring the wine from the flask into the flagon, goes his way, and a moment after, with a hand that has become deft by using the delicate brushes of his art, the hunted artist skillfully unseals the little vial and drops unnoticed a portion of its subtle poison into the beaker.

“Be sure you give him enough,” whispers Guy, who has been standing in front of his friend to screen him, though the crowd is so great and the excitement so intense, bets being offered two to one on the Spaniard, it would have been unnoticed had no precaution been taken.

At this suggestion Oliver pours a double dose into the flagon. Then, handing it to Achille, who has been devoting his time to sucking the oranges thrown from the table by the reeling and unsteady hands of the contestants, he whispers: “Take this to the Spaniard, Vasco de Guerra.”

“Yes!”

“Be sure! The one with the black mustache with the single gray lock!”

“Certainly, the brunette, I’m not a fool!”

“Give it to him with the compliments and good wishes of Mademoiselle Wilhelmina Bodé Volcker. Quick! get it to him at once!”

As the two contestants rise and confront each other for another round, the Spaniard standing up more [[82]]strongly, for his tactics have given him a great advantage, the boy Achille glides to De Guerra, gives him the beaker prepared for him by the hand of the hunted one, and whispers words into his ear that makes a flush of delight run over the drunken redness of his face.

Tossing aside the goblet that was to his hand, Vasco de Guerra cries: “This is old red Rhine wine; I drink this, my reeling Floris, to the beauty of Antwerp!”

And clapping the flagon to his lips he pours down the whole stoup in one long continued, triumphant gulp. Then looking at his rival the joy of winning comes into Vasco de Guerra’s eye, for the painter, having drunk his flagon, can scarce keep his feet.

“Malediction!” whispers Oliver, “The drug does not work.”

“Wait,” answers Guy.

Then, too anxious to speak, their faces distorted with suspense, the two gaze on while the contesting topers sink into their chairs and fortify themselves with condiments for the next round.

As the Spaniard eats he smiles on the painter, whose hands seem scarce able to do their office.

But their goblets are re-filled, and the two rise once more, Floris supporting himself with one hand, as his feet need help now.

“Drink!” says De Guerra, and the painter manages to get his portion down, his competitor standing firm, erect and mocking.

“Now see me!” and Vasco raises his flagon lightly, easily, triumphantly, his backers giving a shout of joy.

But just as he gets the goblet to his lips a kind of dazed expression comes into De Guerra’s face, his hand falls nerveless by his side, and the beaker, dropping from it, goes clattering to the floor, then clutching with both hands at his throat as if for breath, he sinks down, senseless and inert, upon the bodies of his companions, who lie there in drunken stupor, while a cry of triumph goes up from the assembled backers of Floris.

A moment after De Vriendt, staggering, reeling, surrounded by his friends, gets to the fresh air of the street, which gives him new strength. Assisted by his six pupils, who will take him home and put him to bed and nurse him after his drunken bout, he cries: “Ho! [[83]]for another stoup of Rhine wine, strong Rhine wine, landlord of the Painted Inn!” and putting one foot in the stirrup, quaffs down a mighty libation to his defeated ones. Then he rides reeling to his palace on the street named after him, surrounded by happy creditors, who think if Floris lives he will paint more pictures and pay some of his debts.

The crowd, as it surges about, gives very little attention to the Drunkards of Brussels, save one who indulges in a sly kick or two at the recumbent forms that have lost him his money; but almost as he fell Guy and Oliver have taken De Guerra, who is breathing heavily, and borne him to an adjoining room.

Here hastily opening his doublet the painter slips his hand in, and sewn between the linings of his garments he feels a little packet.

Ripping this out, he whispers, as he examines it, “Thank God! the six letters from Louis of Nassau!”

A moment after, Guy, putting his hand upon the breast of the Spaniard, mutters: “The spy is dead.” And a great, deep-drawn breath of relief comes from the Fleming—this one of his many dangers has died with Vasco de Guerra.

The color has returned to his face, and he laughs: “It was your lucky coming and the pigeon pie that saved me—for a little while—my friend, my Guido!”

The two go out together, and on the street Oliver again looks serious and mutters: “Alva! Here before his time. He was not to arrive till evening. What has brought him so suddenly from Brussels?”

For a cavalcade is prancing up the street; thirty horsemen armored in steel with long lances bearing the pennon of Vargas. Before these, upon a strong Andalusian charger, rides a man of spare but very tall stature, in complete, glistening, gold-embossed Milan armor. Over the gorget about his neck is the ribbon of the Golden Fleece upon which hangs the Lamb of God, the insignia of that Order. This is covered by a long sable, silvered beard that falls in two peculiar pointed locks upon his breast, his dark hair cut short, is likewise grizzled; so is his mustache, which drapes peculiar lips, the upper thin, firm and determined; the lower sensual—but determined also; his forehead high, [[84]]pale, blue-veined and strangely intellectual, that of the military mathematician; his nose aquiline and of rare beauty, keen cut, precise, immovable, his cheeks sallow and pallid—altogether a face cold as death, lighted by two blazing, sparkling, unflinching, serpent’s eyes, and yet at times in certain features so like the woman that made Guy’s heart beat with love the night before that he knows it is her father, and murmurs: “Alva!”

The Duke is talking quietly to Alfonso de Ulloa and Pedro Paciotto, his great military engineer, who ride immediately behind him. All are covered with the dust of hasty travel.

As they pass the Painted Inn the Viceroy’s piercing eyes look haughtily upon the crowd that stand upon the steps and throng the pentice of the hostelry with doffed hats to do him reverence. Suddenly reining up, he cries: “Oliver! Antonius Oliver!” and the painter, stepping forth, bows before the Duke of Alva’s charger.

“It is fate I have got word with you so soon. Find for me at once one Vasco de Guerra, ex-Captain in Ladroño’s Musketeers. Tell him I will hear his tale within the hour, and bring him with you to the Citadel at once,” commands the captain-general.

“Under favor, your—your Highness,” returns Oliver, “the—the man you ask for—”

“Yes, speak quickly. What are you stammering about?” says the Viceroy, for the sudden demand for the man he has murdered has staggered the painter, tactician though he is—for a moment.

“I was about to say, your Highness, that this Vasco de Guerra, who is one of the Six Drunkards of Brussels, now lies stupefied from his potations at the drinking bout.”

“What, with that rattle-brain artist Floris!” says Alva; then he suddenly remarks in tones that send a tremor through the frame of Oliver: “And that drunkard thought I would reinstate him in his rank in the army! Some communication he would make to me to-day—something upon which the safety of the realm perhaps depended—something that brought me to Antwerp four hours ahead of my time! Take word to the captain of the provost guard to arrest De Guerra at once. I will speak with him in prison when he recovers [[85]]his senses—this fool, this drunkard, this wine-bibber. And yet—I wonder what he had to tell me? Forward, gentlemen!”

And the Duke rides on, leaving the painter standing almost as breathless as the corpse inside the Painted Inn; for Oliver knows the hand of death has been almost as near to him as to the dead, and mutters, as he rejoins Guy; “Ehu! truly the lion’s jaws had nearly closed!”

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VII.

LOVE—BY A COUP DE MAIN.

“Yes, just in time,” whispers the Englishman, drawing a long breath also. Then he takes a hasty look at the tall Dutch clock ticking lazily away in the wine room.

Noting this the painter laughs. “The sight of the father makes you impatient for the daughter, eh? But you’ve another half an hour to wait, my impulsive gallant. Besides, I haven’t eaten to-day. The provost marshal must wait until I get a bite. Join me in—in my dinner.”

So giving order to an alert serving man, the two sit down to a very hasty, yet comfortable meal, seasoned by peace and contentment, for these young men are so accustomed to danger that any little breathing spell in their struggle with sudden death seems to them a calm, quiet and contented time.

As he eats and drinks Guy looks lazily up and down the street; crowds of people are passing along the Shoemarket. This throng is made picturesque by a smattering of the costumes of most of the nations of the earth; for at this time Antwerp is the mart of Northern Europe, and the greatest commercial emporium of the age.

Ships are taking cargo at its river front for the Indies, East and West, for even the distant coasts of Peru and the Cape of Good Hope, and others are unloading [[86]]from the Baltic and the Mediterranean: consequently seamen and visitors from all known portions of the globe increase the vivacity of the scene.

Curiously enough, there are no English walking the streets of Antwerp to-day, for since Elizabeth stole Alva’s eight hundred thousand crowns, the Duke has forbidden any commerce with Great Britain, and has sequestered all English property and driven out all English merchants living or doing business in Antwerp, of which before this there have been a great number, the English wool trade being one of the great sources of revenue of the city. Just now Antwerp is at its very zenith, from which it is about to go down under the exactions, taxes and tyranny of the Spaniard into a fourth-rate commercial town.

But the burghers, though gloomy and oppressed, do not anticipate, and the merchants still laugh lightly upon the street, thinking themselves princes upon the throne of a commerce that can never be destroyed.

This absence of English blood and English feature would make Guy conspicuous, were not several Danish officers of De Billy striding about the street, and some of these have fair hair, blue eyes and Saxon blondness.

“Now I must carry Alva’s orders to the provost marshal. Fortunately his office is not far from here. Wait for me, I will return in quarter of an hour. You need not look so impatiently at the clock,” remarks Oliver.

But Guy is not looking at the clock. His eyes are fixed upon a man in the costume of a South Zeeland trader who is carefully wiping a pair of tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles and inspecting the placard offering reward for the head of the “First of the English.” As the Zeelander turns the Englishman knows that he has seen him before.

A moment after Chester thinks this man recognizes him, for, though he turns away his head, he keeps one eye upon this gentleman, and notes this gentleman has one eye on him.

“Take me to the provost marshal’s with you,” he whispers to Oliver.

“You—want to go there?” gasps Antony, opening his eyes very wide. [[87]]

“Yes,” returns Guy. “There’s a gentleman here who recognizes me, and has also made himself acquainted with the value of my head. If he follows me I’ll astonish him.”

As the two rise, Oliver’s face very serious at this, they are joined by little De Busaco, who comes striding up to them to be rather effusively welcomed by Chester, who thinks that apparent intimacy with Spanish officers may remove the suspicions of the man who is watching him.

“You’re in good company, I see, Amati,” says the little ensign. “Introduce me to the honor of the acquaintance of the Duke’s under-secretary.”

And this being done the young Spaniard says: “Where are you going?”

“To the provost marshal’s office.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” remarks De Busaco. “I’ve business there myself. I wish to get leave to remain in the town this evening. A little Flemish girl, you understand!” he strokes his mustachios knowingly.

As they walk along the street together, De Busaco, who apparently has joined them for this purpose, goes to questioning and pumping Oliver as to what prospect there is of a near pay-day for the garrison of Antwerp; if he knows anything of the Duke’s plans; how the tenth penny tax comes on, etc., etc., his losses at the drinking bout having apparently made him anxious on this subject.

Guy, however, pays little heed to this. Eye and ear are intent to discover if he is followed by the Zeeland trader. The Shoemarket is so well peopled that this is difficult to determine, but after they have walked from it to Kammer street, past the Inn of the Red Lion, and turned into the network of narrow alleys that lead to the main watergate of the town, where the provost marshal’s office is situated, the crowd grows less and Chester, turning slightly, catches sight of the man whom he fears.

This personage dogs them straight to the city gate, but stands gaping in astonishment as Guy and Oliver, accompanied by the young Spanish officer, enter the office of Alva’s provost marshal, the very door of which [[88]]is placarded with the reward of three thousand Carolus guilders.

“De Busaco,” remarks the Englishman, pausing at the door, “do you see that man in South Zeeland dress?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want something that will save you anxiety about your back pay?”

“Santos! yes!”

“Then take a couple of men and get him. He lives in the disaffected provinces at Flushing. I think the Council of Troubles are looking for him.”

“A reward!” cries the little Spaniard, then flying into the guard room and unheeding military etiquette he calls out, “Some men with me, quick—there’s money in it!”

Two Spanish soldiers, springing up at his bidding from the crowd lounging about the guard-room, he starts with these hurriedly for the street, and is soon in hot pursuit of the trader from South Zeeland, crying: “Heretico fugitivo!” and other words of rage and fury which make that gentleman quicken his steps to so good a purpose that apparently knowing the town well, he dodges into some of the blind alleys in this densely crowded portion of the city, and escapes from the little Spaniard, whose jack boots are not conducive to extreme fleetness of foot.

“I couldn’t catch him,” remarks De Busaco, five minutes afterward, returning breathless, “but I’ll keep my eye open for him.”

“Very well, his reward will make you forget your back pay,” remarks Guy, as Oliver returns from the inner office, where he has been closeted with the captain of the guard, and says the necessary orders have been given for the arrest of De Guerra.

“I don’t think,” laughs Chester, as he and Oliver walk along the street together (for they have left the ensign at the provost marshal’s) “that that gentleman from South Zeeland will be anxious to report himself at any of the guard-houses of this town to give information about me. And now, after danger—” the look on his face tells his meaning to the little painter, who murmurs: “Love!” [[89]]

So the two stride up Kammer street again, and along the Shoemarket to the Place de Meir, where the great house of Bodé Volcker is situated, and going in, find themselves very shortly en rapport with the family of a merchant of that day.

As they reach the arched passageway leading to the courtyard, seeing no signs of equipage, the corner of Guy’s mouth droops.

“Don’t be impatient; it is better to be first, then I can arrange our little scheme of bargains before the arrival of the duenna Countess and her charge,” says the artist.

Leading the way with the familiarity that denotes a friend of the house, Oliver raps upon a side door situated at the further end of the courtyard, and almost immediately is admitted by the servant girl of the evening before; the lady’s maid, Wiarda, she of the haughty nose, apparently being engaged elsewhere.

They enter directly into what is the living room of the house. Here the family of Bodé Volcker, consisting of himself, Jakob, a boy of sixteen, who has just left school for the counting room, and the daughter, Wilhelmina, whose soft blonde curls and merry blue eyes have induced Oliver not only to put her upon his canvas but in his heart, are apparently engaged in a family discussion that is becoming highly flavored.

The old gentleman, an energetic but fat Fleming, with commercial expression and commercial eyes, is evidently excited. His cheeks are red and angry. The young lady’s blue eyes are equally angry, though they are slightly dimmed by latent tears, and one of the corners of her dear little mouth is twitching nervously. The boy, like most cubs of his age, is seemingly enjoying some dispute between papa and sister, for his blonde German face has a suppressed snicker in it. If he dared he would laugh.

“Ah, Oliver,” cries the merchant, rising with outstretched hands, “back from Brussels! A short trip,” and welcomes the painter with the easy familiarity of a friend of his house.

Miss Wilhelmina, on the contrary, greets Antony in haughty Spanish style, extending white fingers for her sweetheart to kiss. [[90]]

The cub merely snickers; “Hoe maakt je ’t?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of bringing a friend, Captain Guido Amati, of the Middelburg garrison,” remarks the painter.

“A friend of yours, Oliver! Welcome—welcome to everything in my house,” says Niklaas with Flemish hospitality, giving Guy cordial greeting.

“Captain Amati is known to the Doña Hermoine, and as the Duke’s secretary—”

It is unnecessary to say more; at mention of the Viceroy’s daughter Miss Wilhelmina most affably seconds her father’s hospitality and extends her white fingers for Spanish welcome. These Guy, making no mistake this time, kisses, perhaps lingering a shade too long over the soft, fair hand for the pleasure of his friend Oliver.

Then the merchant cries out suddenly with Flemish primitiveness: “Chairs, Wilhelmina; chairs for the gentlemen!”

“Father!” remarks the young lady haughtily, “you forget we have lackeys in the house,” and, ringing a hand bell, orders the serving man to place seats for the cavaliers.

“Oh, ho! more foreign airs!” jeers the old gentleman snappishly, apparently taking up a discussion that has been dropped. “Don’t forget Flanders simplicity, my daughter. Though your father is called a millionaire, perhaps he won’t be a millionaire long, with that accursed tenth penny tax,” adds Niklaas, grinding his teeth.

“You come from Brussels, Señor Antony,” interrupts the young lady, adopting the Spanish style of address. “While there I presume, as the Duke’s under-secretary, you met the Duchess of Aerschot. She arrives in Antwerp to-day, and gives an entertainment to-morrow evening. You will be there, I presume, Captain Amati, also Señor Oliver?”

“Unfortunately I leave Antwerp this evening,” answers Guy.

“And under-secretaries and heralds are not invited,” remarks the painter, apparently by no means pleased at the idea.

“You’ll go, I presume, Freule Bodé Volcker?” suggests [[91]]Guy, persuasively. “Your dance, I believe, is much admired.”

“Of course,” murmurs the young lady, nonchalantly.

“Of course not!” cries the Flemish father with the air of a Roman one.

“Papa!”

“Verdomd! Do you suppose I’ll have you, my young lady, keep my carriage horses out again as you did last night, so that they went to sleep in the goods van this morning! The Countess of Mansfeld’s yesterday and the Duchess of Aerschot’s to-morrow and you not up until dinner to-day. My servants eating me out of house and home; you haven’t kept your household accounts for a week! Don’t answer me, miss, I have looked at your market book, not written up—not written up—no commercial ideas! But let me tell you,” adds the old gentleman, “if this happens again, down you come at eight in the morning and attend to women customers in the wareroom,” he points toward the commercial end of the house. “Remember that!”

And bottling up his wrath, Papa Bodé Volcker makes adieu to Guy and Oliver, remarking that he must attend to business if none of the rest of the family do, but dragging off the snickering boy Jakob.

“Papa is very eccentric. This sort of discussion always begins with the tenth penny tax,” remarks the young lady solemnly. Then she half sighs, half laughs: “We have this every week or two, though not generally in public. He’ll be coming back again in a minute,” giving a little horrified snicker as the old gentleman fulfils her prophecy by popping his head in at the door and crying:

“And that French jumping-jack, who teaches you to sling your feet about! I flung him out, waistband and neck ruff, this morning!”

But this news is too much for the fair Wilhelmina’s complacency. She springs up with a scream of horror, “Oh, papa! Poor, dear little Monsieur de Valmy!” and there are tears in her eyes.

“Yes, and the music master, that spinet playing fellow, goes also. No more flipping the heel and raising the toe; no more semi-quavers and high Italian [[92]]screeches,” jabbers the ex-burgomaster. “Remember the tenth penny tax! Some day I will be a music teacher myself,” and with this extraordinary prophecy Bodé Volcker darts for his counting room.

But this astounding prediction is too much for every one. They go into laughter, which Miss Wilhelmina leads, ejaculating: “A music teacher, indeed! Screeches and semi-quavers!”

Tossing herself into a chair in front of a near-by spinet, she gives out smilingly a little Provençal chançon with such unaffected ease and grace that both Guy and Oliver declare it would be a shame if the music master should be suppressed, tenth penny tax or no.

This seems to put them all at their ease, Miss Bodé Volcker regaling the gentlemen with an account of the grand fête of the Countess Mansfeld in honor of Doña de Alva the night before, mentioning the names of the Signeurs de la Noircarmes, D’Avila, Mondragon, Gabriel de Cerbolloni, and other officers and nobles as being present, as well as the younger Countess Mansfeld, the aristocratic Baroness d’ Ayala, and the beautiful Doña Anica de la Medrado, just come with the latest Madrid fashions. “I was the only one from the town,” she adds innocently, “but my dancing was greatly admired.”

A moment after they have proof of this.

There is a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard and four prancing Spanish mules come clattering in dragging a coach of state, their outriders and lackeys in the glittering liveries of Alva.

A second after Doña Hermoine, robed in priceless furs, her glorious head shaded by jaunty Spanish hat and long white plumes, her face brilliant with brunette radiance, her eyes growing, perchance, more brilliant, as they look upon Guy Chester’s well-knit form, enters the apartment. Behind her comes the attendant Countess de Pariza, duenna-like aspect on her formal face.

Though Guy and Oliver rise quickly to greet rank, title and beauty, Miss Bodé Volcker is before them at the door welcoming the ladies who do her and her house so much honor.

“It is so condescending of you, Doña de Alva, so kind of you, Countess de Pariza,” she murmurs, “to [[93]]honor me in my own home,” and courtesying to the ground, kisses Hermoine’s hand, which that young lady, daughter of the Viceroy of Spain, courteously permits,—then steps immediately across the apartment to allow the two gentlemen, bowing before her, the same privilege.

The Countess de Pariza does not extend her formal, thin, severe hand, as the daughter of the ex-burgomaster courtesies to the floor before her, but says rather brusquely: “We have called, Juffrouw Bodé Volcker to see you dance again. It pleased me greatly last night.”

“To see me dance—here?” says the young lady, pouting, as the Countess uses to her Juffrouw, the title of the middle classes, with little more ceremony than she would to a serving girl. “I—I am not in costume. Besides, these gentlemen—.” Miss Bodé Volcker looks embarrassed, as the request has the form of a command, that will make her seem more like a dancing girl than a young lady of society to Captain Guido Amati.

“To be sure. You can put on your costume. Run upstairs, and deck yourself at once. Those pink silk stockings become you,” replies Señora de Pariza. “As for these gentlemen,” she turns her argus eyes upon Chester and Oliver, who are in conversation with Doña Hermoine, though as her father’s under-secretary, Antony has stepped slightly behind the Englishman, who is a military swell under his title Captain of Musketeers, “they must be relatives, you converse with them alone, Juffrouw Bodé Volcker. It’s a very bad habit for girls of your age to adopt. Lines of propriety are drawn at brothers; cousins are very dangerous. So trip upstairs and put on the costume of Hungary, which became you so well last night. I will call in one of my Moorish girls who plays the spinet.”

With this the duenna would stride to the door to summon an attendant, but Doña Hermoine, noting the embarrassment the order causes the aspiring Mina, with that unaffected condescension which very great rank permits the potentates of this world to make those below them in station easy and happy, suddenly cries;

“Dancing, Countess? then I’m your young lady!” [[94]]and tossing off with one graceful gesture her furry wraps, with another sweeps up a trailing silken skirt and stands a picture before them, laughing: “Castanets, and I am an Andalusian gipsy!”

But the duenna, suddenly drawing herself up, utters a horrified ejaculation: “Before these gentlemen, Doña de Alva?”

“Why not, if I can dance well enough to please them? Captain Guido has placed me last night under obligations that permit me to do anything for his benefit and pleasure, and Señor Oliver is one of my father’s household, and as such very near to me.”

Here Oliver winces. He could betray the tyrant father, but the thought that this being of goodness and kindness will one day think him a traitor and ignoble brings with it twinges of remorse.

“Dance! The daughter of the Viceroy tossing her feet about?” ejaculates the duenna.

“Pooh!” laughs the girl archly. “Have I not posed for Señor Oliver’s Madonna—in bare feet too. Some day I am to make Señor Antony celebrated, or, rather, he will make me worshiped by his genius and his altar piece.”

“You posed for your foot” murmurs Guy, casting an enraptured glance at the exquisite member the girl displays as she still holds the Gitana attitude.

“Yes, I hope he painted them small enough to please you,” laughs the young lady. “But sit down at the spinet, Señorita Mina, and play for me so that I may enrapture the Countess de Pariza by dancing,” adds Doña Hermoine, looking archly at her duenna, who seems to have lost her appetite for Terpsichore.

To this, the dragon says sharply: “Since Juffrouw Bodé Volcker is indisposed to repeat for me the pleasure of last evening, I will go into her father’s shop and see if there are any bargains to-day in Lyons silks and velvets and the lace of Venice.”

“There should be,” remarks Oliver, suggestively. “Great bargains! The damage from the flood must have cheapened everything.”

“Bargains! Come, let me see,” and La Pariza would call her two Moorish attendants, but Guy, who has been wishing her God-speed in his heart ever since [[95]]she has entered, very politely opens the door for her departure across the courtyard to the warerooms of the merchant.

Doña Hermoine has apparently not come on a shopping expedition, at least not for laces and dress goods; she does not accompany her duenna, but remains standing, a picture of grace, in the attitude she has taken for the dance.

“You don’t care for new costumes, Doña de Alva,” remarks Guy dreamily, the beauty of the girl’s pose enchanting him, as well it may, for the young lady wears some soft clinging costume of southern Spain with Moorish effects in it, that outlines her lithe graceful beauty in every curve, and, swept up by one dainty hand, permits a suspicion of ankle so exquisite in proportion and symmetry that poets would dream over it—but this audacious sailor simply loves it.

“No, why should I? I have dozens I never use, and papa would give me a thousand if I were foolish enough to want them,” replies Doña Hermoine, resigning Gitana attitude and sweeping her Moorish jupe upon the floor again. “He gives me everything I ask for.” Then she remarks naively: “You have discovered my name—that I am the daughter of the Viceroy, Captain Guido Amati. You—you see I have discovered your name. Or rather I should say, Major Guido Amati.”

“Major?”

“Yes; promoted since noon!”

“But your father—?”

“Oh, I told him nothing about it. You are absent without leave. Neither did I tell Sancho d’Avila, who is colonel of your regiment in the absence of Romero in Spain. But there was a vacancy, and it was easily granted to Captain Guido Amati, who, I am informed, is the bravest officer in the army, or one of the bravest. That is all that can be said for any man under Alva.”

“Major in Romero’s foot!” gasps Guy, who, during this speech, has been gazing at her in a dazed, startled way.

“Yes, I took the muster-roll of the regiment myself, and saw that Captain was altered to Major.”

“The muster-roll!” murmurs Chester, not believing his ears. [[96]]

“Yes, there are duplicates at the Citadel.”

“The muster-rolls at the Citadel,” he stammers, stunned by surprise. Then suddenly it flashes through him that amazement will betray him, that gratitude is the only way he can receive this astounding communication; a gratitude that is very pleasant to him. Taking advantage of the young lady’s position, for she has extended a hand toward him in happy, gracious gesture, he imprints one kiss of obligation upon it and two more of rapturous love, and Miss Brunette’s lilies become roses.

This is effected without undue publicity, as Oliver has taken the fair Mina into the next room, and is whispering into her ear: “Look in Doña Hermoine’s eyes. Don’t you see a request, you foolish girl? She saved you from the embarrassment of the dance; do something for her. Please your father. Go in and be a saleswoman. Show the Countess de Pariza every bargain in your store. Furthermore, make them bargains. Cut the price of everything in half.”

“Cut prices one-half! Great heavens, my father!”

“I’ll pay the balance, or rather Captain Amati will.”

“Oh, I see,” laughs the girl. “But what will her father, the awful Duke, say?”

“He’ll never know if you give Countess de Pariza bargains enough to keep her busy. Do it—for me.”

“Oh, you—!”

For the painter has emphasized his “for me” by a lover’s salute.

Thus urged, and catching Hermoine’s bright eyes with a request in them, Mina runs away under Oliver’s promptings to make a bargain counter of her father’s whole store, and to cut prices in such a way that would rouse the old Bodé Volcker to madness were he present; but fortunately Heer Bodé Volcker has gone down to the quay to see about the unloading of a ship.

A minute later Oliver has sauntered to the extreme end of the great banqueting room. Though theoretically he is present, practically he sees nothing, hears nothing, and the daughter of the Viceroy and Guy Stanhope Chester are alone together.

“You see,” says the young lady, archly, “I’ve been inquiring about you. Oh, don’t be afraid. No one [[97]]knows that you are here—absent from duty. They wouldn’t have made you Major, perhaps, if they had. But it has been whispered to me that you are even more than Major Guido Amati. You are Major Guido Amati de Medina, son of Hernandez de Medina, once Viceroy of Hispaniola, and have sworn never to assume your exalted family name until you are a general, which you soon must be.”

Then she cries out suddenly, clapping her hands, “Why, since you’re a Medina, you must be a cousin to the Duke of Medina Cœli.”

“Only—only third cousin,” stammers Guy, who thinks his ears are playing him false, though he knows his eyes are doing very good work, indeed.

“Well, anyway, you have the blood of the grandees of Spain, and as such your family is equal to mine,” murmurs the girl, a curious emphasis on the last remark. “As such, of course, you may sit by my side,” and the young lady sinking upon a Turkish sofa, a dream of vivacious grace, motions Guy to the familiarity of equal social station.

As she looks on the Englishman a great wave of color flies over Hermoine de Alva’s face, and in response Chester’s heart gives a big jump or two as he sees what must have been the drift of the girl’s mind.

“I am glad that you know so much about me,” he says, laughingly, then goes on grimly: “Glad that what you have learned has not displeased you.”

“Oh, I don’t know altogether that,” remarks the young lady; then she says, archness in her tone, but a quiver on her lip: “It was also whispered that Captain Guido Amati was a very wild young man. I hope that Major Guido Amati will be more circumspect. But still, they said you were the bravest officer in the army.” And the girl looks at him joyously, radiantly, proudly.

She has apparently been conjuring up some dream, some vision of her imagination, the center of which has always been Guido Amati; it brings a light into her eyes that adds even to her beauty, for at times were it not for womanly graces, vivacity and emotion, her brilliant intellect would, perchance, give too great coldness to Hermoine de Alva’s exquisite face. [[98]]

But, fired by the latent romance of her nature, her delicate face is as inspired—it would put glow into a saint: but with a sailor—.

And what she says gives golden opportunity. She has held up the ruby ring and whispered, “You returned this to me?”

“Only that I might see you again,” and Guy is seated beside her.

“Then if you wish to see me once more, take the ruby from me—quick!”

“Never!”

“Never?”

“Never, unless on your finger, you wear this, one of my spoils of Hispaniola.” And the Englishman has taken from a chain about his neck a ring bearing a single brilliant.

“Oh, Santos! What are you doing?” falters the girl.

He has got possession of her fair hand now, and her eyes look into his for one great glance, then turn from him, and droop; their long lashed lids falling upon flaming cheeks. The next instant the diamond sparkles on the taper finger and Hermoine de Alva, the daughter of Spain’s Viceroy is only woman—loving woman—before this man, who has not wooed her heart, but has seized it.

“Take the ruby—now you’ve given me the diamond,” she murmurs. “You—you know what this means?”

“Please God, I do! You are my plighted bride. Mine—mine now forever!” And his audacious lips give lover’s greeting, not as the night before, the kiss of hasty mistletoe effect, but the long rapture of clinging hearts.

“Beware! I—I am the Viceroy’s daughter,” murmurs the lady. She hangs her head, then suddenly raises her eyes to his and goes on firmly, distinctly: “My Guido, you are audacious!”

“Yes,” he whispers, “Were you the Queen of Spain, I’d love you.”

“Then you could not win me!”

“But as, thank God, you are Hermoine de Alva,” answers Guy sturdily, “I will win you and wear you, daughter of the Viceroy though you be, for my beloved [[99]]wife. You hear the term!”—for she gives sudden start at this new title. “Wife! And every time you say to me, ‘I am the daughter of Alva,’ or ‘Beware the Captain General of the Netherlands!’ your lips that do the deed shall pay the price, two for each word.”

“Madre Mia! How impulsive you are,” cries the girl panting and struggling under the penalty exacted. For Guy Stanhope Chester is half mad with love and rapture, and though he respects this captive of his masculine bow and spear, still he woos her in a free and easy sailor manner which enthralls but astounds this daughter of the Viceroy. “Holy Virgin! you—you are so—so different.”

“From whom?” cries Guy in jealous tones.

“From—from the other suitors, who come bowing to the earth, mincing compliments and fawning for the honor of my hand.”

“And they have dared?” snarls this gallant, who now regards all this brunette loveliness, these drooping, melting eyes, these lily and rose tinted cheeks, these ivory shoulders, this exquisite form, half girl’s, half woman’s—in short Hermoine de Alva—as his very own.

“Dared!” pouts the young lady; then laughs, “Why not? Am I so very ugly?”

“No, no! too beautiful.”

“Then why should not grandees of Spain and generals in the army and Hidalgos of twenty-four quarterings aspire in humble tones and modest manner for an honor you take, my audacious Guido, as if heaven had given you title to me, the daughter of a Viceroy!”

“And so it has, and love likewise, thy love,” and Guy has her in his arms again, murmuring: “You spoke the words ‘the daughter of a Viceroy!’ Beware the penalty.”

“Take it, tyrant,” whispers the girl, and with this name that women love to give to those whose domination commands their love, she puts her soul upon her lips and gives it to him.

And this game might go on indefinitely, the two seeming to like to play it very well, did not the sound of Oliver’s rapid footsteps announce his coming from the banqueting room.

He steps to them, and bowing before the young lady [[100]]says: “Doña de Alva, I have the honor, as your father’s herald, to announce his coming!”

“Papa! Here!” and with these words the girl is up.

“Yes, the Duke’s cavalcade is already in the Shoemarket, doubtless he is in search of you. I will tell the Countess de Pariza.”

As Oliver on his errand closes the door Guy knows his time is very short, for Hermoine is dallying with her furs and whispering: “Away from your garrison without leave, papa had better not see you. I will meet him in the street.”

Then as Guy is wrapping the cloak about her, each touch a caress, she adds significantly; “I shall spend a month or two in Brussels, but if Major Guido Amati de Medina asks for leave from the Middelburg garrison, he will doubtless get it. Though don’t, for sight of me, neglect the duties of your post. Remember, my Guido, that every step you take in the army brings you nearer to the church door where a bride awaits you—whom you have made forget she is the daughter of a Viceroy!”

“Penalty!” mutters Guy, and takes this kiss very solemnly, for already the murmur of the approaching crowd tells of the coming father.

At this the young lady says, with a delicious moue: “How doleful! One would think you an unsuccessful suitor! But your message by Oliver spoke of danger,” and there is a tremor in her voice.

“Yes, I must have the word of the night to pass the sentries. I must leave this evening.”

“Of course to be in Middelburg when your commission arrives. I have thought of that and brought it with me.” With this she hands him a little paper.

It reads:

THE WORD IS “SANTA CRUZ.”
COUNTERSIGN “DON FREDRICO.”

As he glances at this, she smiles in his face: “I’ve half a mind not to give it to you—not to let you go. What brought my rash young officer to Antwerp without leave?”

“You.”

“Oh!”

“And for you I’d come again a thousand times. I [[101]]was going to the Drowned Lands duck shooting, when, by the blessing of God, I saved you from the Beggars of the Sea, my own—my prize.” And knowing that every chance of this earth is against his wearing as his bride this sweetheart he has won, Guy’s face is drawn and contorted with the agony of a parting that is to him like death. Sadness is catching as well as love, and the girl gets to sighing and sobbing under his farewells that are so solemn—though she can’t guess why.

But Oliver, with rattling door-latch, cries: “The Countess de Pariza is already in the carriage. Quick!”

Then Guy, seeing his time has come, though his sweetheart would linger longer, and begins to cling to him with little sighs of love, hurriedly assists her to the carriage and puts her in.

Half turning round, his affianced holds up her white finger to him. Upon it glistens the ring of his love.

The postilions crack their whips, the state vehicle flies through the arch, and all that he has to remind him of the woman who was but now in his arms, is the memory of her kisses, her ruby ring upon his finger, and a little document that bears the talisman that will make him safe from her father’s sentries at the gates.

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER VIII.

“THE UNGAINABLE!—BUT I’LL GAIN HER!”

“Look,” says the painter, leading the way to a window opening on the street.

And Guy, from the curtains of Bodé Volcker’s house, sees the man of the death’s face, before whom the crowd cower and tremble, bow to his saddle-bow before the coach of his daughter, his face illuminated by the proud eyes of father’s love.

“Egad! I think I’ve run up my account with him,” mutters the Englishman. Then he turns suddenly to Antony and says: “A word with you. On my first visit here, for my safety you invented for my use the name of Captain Guido Amati, of Romero’s foot. [[102]]There is another living Guido Amati, Captain of Romero’s foot.”

“Certainly there is,” returns Oliver, and astounds Guy. “I took the name from the roster of Romero’s regiment. It was then quartered in Friesland, two hundred miles from here, the most distant of all the Netherland provinces, and I thought it better to give you a name that could be verified. But what does this matter?”

“Matter!” replies Chester glumly. “Only this, that I have just learned that Guido Amati has been promoted on my account to Major in his regiment; that Captain Guido Amati of Romero’s foot has been behaving in some wild, reckless kind of manner, apparently with ladies, and that Major Guido Amati has just been severely cautioned to behave himself from this time forth most circumspectly. Zounds!” he goes on savagely, “if this gentleman I am christened after doesn’t take good care he’ll have an account to render to me, who have now his sins on my shoulders!”

Then he bursts into a laugh in which Oliver joins, and says more complacently: “But I’ve also got the reputation of being the bravest man in the army. Besides, I am the third cousin of the Duke of Medina Cœli, and, I imagine, entitled to keep my hat on in the presence of Philip II. of Spain.”

“Very well, my grandee,” returns Antony smiling. “Here is the bill the Countess de Pariza has run up against you—two hundred guilders! That’s your half of the affair. If his Highness of Alva hadn’t chanced along I imagine she’d have bought all in Bodé Volcker’s warehouses.”

“A—ah,” sighs Guy, passing over the money, “I’d give everything I have for another tête-à-tête with my—my promised wife,” he struggles with a tear as he thinks of the beautiful being whose love he has captured by a coup de main.

“Your promised wife!” gasps Oliver. “Morbleu! you have been making hay,” next shortly says: “By heaven, if Alva ever puts hand on you and knows this, dread the reckoning, my audacious Englishman. Besides, you’ll have to be quick about this matter if you ever get her!” [[103]]

“Why so?”

“Alva will not remain in the Netherlands much longer. The country is crushed (pacified he calls it), though the embers are smouldering. He’s collecting the tenth penny tax, but not paying the troops. Some of the money he sends to Spain—just enough to keep Philip quiet, but the balance—God knows what he does with it, though I guess it is for transmission to Italy or to Spain, to make him equal in wealth to many a king.”

“By St. George, if I could get my hands on it,” answers the Englishman, the instinct of the sea rover coming up in him. “That would be a fitting dower for his fair daughter.”

“As far as my information goes,” says Oliver, “no living man has put his eyes on where he keeps this treasure, though I have a suspicion. The great statue that he is erecting, the one that will be undraped next week, in the enceinte of the Citadel here, has something peculiar in its dimensions. Its pedestal is enormous. The workmen employed upon its base have been brought from Italy, and are under the direct personal supervision of Paciotto, his engineer. These having finished the pedestal, have all been reshipped, bountifully rewarded, to their native country. Not one has been permitted to remain in the Netherlands. There’s a secret in that statue!”

Further consideration of this is suddenly broken in upon by the entrance of the ex-burgomaster and his daughter. The old gentleman seems pleased.

“You’ll stay and sup with me, gentlemen, I hope,” he remarks. “I am happy to announce that my daughter Mina has been an obedient little girl this afternoon, and sold goods for me in my shop—four hundred guilders worth, to the Countess de Pariza, two hundred paid in cash, something that never happened to me before in my dealings with the nobility. But then,” he chucks Mina under the chin, “my little girl is a very sharp business woman. Some day she’ll be as valuable as her poor mother was.”

“Father,” says the young lady, taking advantage of the circumstances, “can I go to the Duchess of Aerschot’s?”

“Humph! Well, you’re young, you shall be happy; [[104]]but don’t keep the horses out all night; you know I use them in the goods van in the morning. Gentlemen, remain, and I’ll show you my little girl is not only a good saleswoman, but a cook and housewife.”

“Father!” ejaculates the young lady very sternly, “Remember that we have a Frenchman-cook in the house!”

But Guy does not stay to test the cuisine of the Bodé Volcker mansion. Having had his tête-à-tête with brunette, he gives Oliver a chance of interview with blonde, and goes off to the Painted Inn, where Antony promises to join him early in the evening.

It is now dark, and seating himself in the wine room, which is illuminated by oil lamps and flickering candles, the Englishman orders a bounteous supper, knowing that he may be up all the night returning to his ship. Success has given him appetite, though he scarce knows what he is eating, for his whole meal is a succession of recollections, each one a rapture. These rhapsodies are suddenly and disagreeably broken in upon.

A man, apparently from his dress and demeanor the captain of some trading vessel, strides into the room followed by a burgher, and with a muttered oath slaps himself into a chair at the table next to Chester. “Voor den duivel!” he growls, “not permitted to pass the city gates to go to my own ship. What’ll become of my cargo, half landed. The mate and drunken crew will be having a fine time!”

“Calm yourself, Captain,” says his consignee in soothing tone. “The regulation is very unusual. You will doubtless be permitted to pass through the gates to the quay at daylight.”

“Yes, giving me the expense of a berth at an inn, and my comfortable cabin unoccupied. Another guilder wrung out of me in this port of Antwerp. If this thing goes on, the commerce of this place will be damned forever.”

“But it will probably never occur again,” says the merchant. “Such a thing has not been heard of before for a year.” And the two go into conversation discussing the why’s and wherefore’s of this unusual vigilance at the gates.

Guy gets to meditating upon this also. He had noticed [[105]]before, during the early part of his meal, this same captain, apparently the guest of the same merchant at supper at one of the tables. Half an hour before this they had gone out; they have now returned, the captain having evidently been unable to pass the guards. If such orders have been issued the word of the night is probably useless. What can have caused it? Can it be some suspicion of his presence in the town?

Even as he meditates, Oliver enters, a very serious look on his face. Stepping up to Guy’s table he seats himself by him and whispers: “Come with me.”

“Why?” This is a whisper also.

“Orders have been given for nobody to pass out of the gates of Antwerp to-night.”

“The reason?”

“I don’t know, unless they suspect your presence in the town. Come to my lodgings with me.”

“No, I shall remain here,” replies the Englishman firmly.

“Why?”

“For two reasons. First, I won’t put further jeopardy upon you. Second, if orders are given for no one to pass the gates, I expect they will very shortly come to the quick ears of a young lady who is interested in one Major Guido Amati de Medina, an officer of Romero’s foot, absent from his post without leave. Incidentally to-day I mentioned to her that I stopped at the Painted Inn. This is the place where she would send to find me. But don’t stay with me, Oliver. My seizure in your company might bring suspicion on you—sit at another table!”

“I won’t leave you, when perchance I can aid you,” says the generous artist. Then he mutters suddenly: “By heaven, perhaps it has come now!”

And it has, though not as Antony fears, for little Ensign de Busaco, swinging through the door, takes one glance about the room and strides up to the Englishman.

“I want you,” he says, while Guy’s hand quietly seeks the dirk in his bosom. “I want you to take one of the state barges down to Sandvliet to-night.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, I was unable to obtain leave to remain out of [[106]]barracks to-night at the provost marshal’s office, and went to the Citadel to get it. While there I was summoned to Doña de Alva. She remarked to me that Captain Amati, who had brought her barge up so successfully last night, was just the man to take it down this evening. It goes on some errand of the young lady. She charged me to give this note to you, and to conduct you through the Citadel to the place of landing the night before, where the rowers and a new crew will be ready—I believe the Beggars of the Sea killed the last.”

With this he presents a sealed letter to the Englishman in the handwriting that he loves.

Breaking the seal of Alva, Guy hastily reads:

My Dearest Guido.

I can’t help calling you that. It is, perhaps, rash, but that is how I think of you.

It is just now known to me that the gates of the city are closed to egress to-night, information of some daring pirate or outlaw being concealed in Antwerp having reached headquarters. Knowing the necessity of an officer absent without leave reaching Middelburg before his commission, I am despatching my galley to my country house at Sandvliet to bring up some articles left behind in the hasty retreat of last night. Will you not be kind enough to steer the boat down the Schelde as successfully as you steered it up?

Ensign de Busaco will pass you through the Citadel.

Praying that God will watch over you and bring you back to me with as much love in your heart as I have for you in mine, I am, as I ever shall be, your

Hermoine.

“You look happy,” laughs De Busaco, “at an order for a long night boat journey?”

“I am always at the orders of Doña de Alva,” remarks Guy. “Come!”

“Quick,” replies the little Ensign. “I’ve got my leave to stay out of barracks this night. The sooner we get through with this the sooner I am free for my affair.”

So, Guy hastily settling his score, the three leave the Painted Inn and making their way to Beguin street, stride rapidly along that thoroughfare to the Esplanade, where Oliver, in low tones, and with hearty grasp, says: “Good-bye.”

“God bless you!” mutters Guy. [[107]]

And though they speak it not, as their hands clasp they mean friendship and brotherhood.

A few minutes after Chester and De Busaco are at the Citadel, where, passing over the drawbridge and through the great gateway, Guy learns that the word of the night has been changed and is now “San Sebastian,” countersign “Corpus Christi.”

From here they pass through the enceinte right by the statue of Alva, De Busaco remarking parenthetically: “They’ve got his arm up to-day. They’ll be all ready to show him off next week. Caramba! that means the trouble of a dress parade. And no pay day yet. Some day we may dig out our arrears from this hollow pedestal. Alva is cunning, but his troops have their eyes open also!”

Going across this great fortification, they come out at the little sally-port in the moat where Guy had landed the night before. Here they have no difficulty of exit. The same galley that the Englishman brought up is waiting for them; the rowers in place with a new crew, to whom De Busaco introduces him as the officer who will take charge of the boat to Sandvliet; then goes on his way with a hasty “Adios, Señor!” for the little ensign is behind in his appointment with some young lady of the city.

Just as the boat is casting off, for Guy does not waste much time about this matter, a waiting maid, one of the Moorish handmaidens of the night before, comes running over the little drawbridge crying: “Stay!—one moment—stay!”

Then, as Guy stands up in the barge, she whispers to him, holding out a belt of heavy leather: “Buckle this round your waist, Señor Capitan, my mistress charges me to tell you to be careful of it. It is the one you left in the boat so carelessly last night.”

“Oh—ah, yes,” says the Englishman, to whom lies this day have become easy. “I was looking for it. I didn’t know where I’d left it,” and buckling it about him, wonders what the deuce is in it.

“Egad, it’s not a life preserver,” he thinks. “It would send me to the bottom like a shot.”

Anyway, whatever it is, he is enraptured to get it from the hands of Hermoine de Alva. [[108]]

But he has not much time to think of this; he has called to the rowers and the boat is now under way and gliding through the moat that surrounds the great bastions of the Spaniard.

Five minutes after they are in the open river, and, though the tide is against them, they are en route toward Sandvliet and safety. Keeping well across by the further bank of the river they pass unchallenged, though Guy can see the lights of several guard and patrol boats moving among the shipping on the city’s edge.

“Give way, my lads,” cries the Englishman enthusiastically, “and I’ll stand a cask of wine when we reach Sandvliet.”

Thus adjured the men bend to their oars, while the cockswain of the barge gets into quite friendly chat with Chester, telling him that this place they are going to is a beautiful summer chateau used sometimes by Alva himself, but mostly by his daughter, to enjoy the fresh sea breezes blowing up the Schelde estuary during the hot months of summer.

“We came down very early this year,” he says, “the weather was so pleasant. Fortunately I was in Antwerp last night, otherwise I would have been done to death with poor Antonio and the rest by those murdering Beggars of the Sea.”

The conversation of this man whiles away the time, and in three hours, the wind aiding them a little, they are off the Fort of Lillo.

Here four guard boats are on duty, one of them stopping their barge. As the Costa Guarda comes alongside, her commander recognizing a state barge of Alva, and Guy giving him the new words of the night, which have apparently been sent hurriedly down to Lillo, the captain of the boat wishes Chester God-speed, remarking: “Take care of yourself. It is reported that the First of the English is somewhere down below. Two galleys, the Santa Cruz and the Holy Trinity, go down to see if they can capture this pirate to-morrow morning.”

“Thank you for the information,” replies Guy, as his boat dashes on its way.

At the last dyke left standing by the flood below Fort [[109]]Lillo, Guy sees three lanterns displayed in line and knows his boat is awaiting him. He suddenly says: “I’ve piloted you through the worst of the journey. You are now within a mile of the country place. What is it named?”

“Bella Vista,” replies the cockswain.

“Very well, take the galley to Bella Vista and perform the errand you are charged with. Here’s two doubloons for the wine I promised you and the crew. Land me upon the dyke. A boat is awaiting me there. I am going duck shooting on the Drowned Lands; if my men row fast enough I shall get there for the morning flight. I have arquebuses and a cross bow in my skiff.”

The two doubloons making the men very happy, they quickly land Guy upon the dyke and depart on their way.

A few minutes after the Englishman, getting to the three lanterns, waves them.

Continuing this some little time, the splash of oars is heard, and a boat comes very cautiously through the darkness, feeling its way up to the land, apparently fearing ambuscade.

“Ahoy!” shouts Guy.

Then he hears Martin Corker cry: “Give way, lads! That’s the captain’s voice,” and with three or four sturdy strokes the boat glides up to the dyke.

A moment after Chester, pulled by English arms, is driving as fast as oars can take him towards the Dover Lass. The little ship is difficult to discover, as she has no lights out; but the boat, giving flash signals, the vessel hangs up a lantern to show them where to find her.

Upon his deck Chester receives report from his first officer:

“I’m glad you’re here,” says Dalton. “We would have been attacked to-morrow, I think. I am sure a patrol boat came down the river to see if they could discover us.”

“We’ll not be attacked to-morrow,” laughs Guy, and taking speaking trumpet, he gives orders to break ground with the anchor and to hoist the head sails.

“You’re not going to fight the Spaniards?”

“No, run away to England. I have such an important [[110]]communication for my Queen it would be treason if I risked losing it.”

Then, his vessel being handy, and his crew numerous, the Dover Lass is very quickly under way, driving down the Schelde for the open ocean.

And in the cabin is Guy Stanhope Chester, securing under lock and key the spoils of this strange trip to Antwerp.

These are: a package of letters in cipher touching the assassination of Elizabeth of England, and the key by which to read them; a ruby ring that tells him he has won the love of the Viceroy’s daughter, and two letters in her handwriting.

“Egad, I’ve done pretty well,” thinks Guy. Then he looks at the miniature he has carried with him for over three years and mutters: “Marvelous that I at last should find and win her. Who says romance died with the troubadours? Egad, I feel like a troubadour myself. Ta-la-la!”—and taking troubadour step, he suddenly mutters: “Gadzooks! I have also something else,” for the heavy belt about his waist reminds him of the last thing Doña de Alva has sent to him.

Inspecting it he finds it is really a strong leather bag, made to buckle on securely.

Opening it he growls: “Pish!” for it is laden with golden doubloons, but a moment after pounces on a little packet that he has swept out with the coin. Then he suddenly laughs: “Egad! She didn’t know I had one of her before,” for another miniature of his fair Castilian sweetheart greets his devouring eyes. A little note is folded up with the portrait. It reads:

“Dearest:

“I have taken the liberty of sending you my face to help you remember it. It is not the living image for you to carry with you; God knows I wish it were. But some day when Major Guido Amati de Medina becomes a General, I’ll make it the real one—oh God! what happiness!

“I have taken the liberty of enclosing with this a hundred golden doubloons. The officers in the Middelburg garrison have not been paid for over a year, and I would wish a gentleman who is one day to wed the daughter of Alva to live in suitable style, appointment and equipage. If you hesitate to accept this I shall not think you love me as I want you to. It is but a little first payment in advance on the dower of

“Your future spouse,
“Hermoine de Alva.”

[[111]]

“My future spouse she shall be,” cries Guy. Then in that wildness passion brings to young hearts he puts the two miniatures of the exquisite beauty who has just signed herself his future wife before him, and chuckles: “Behold my old love—the unfindable that I have found! See my new sweetheart, the ungainable, that, by heaven! I will win and wear as my wife, though she be the daughter of Alva, mine enemy.” [[112]]

BOOK II.

Twixt Love and War.

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER IX.

“NO PROVISIONS, NO WATER, BUT PLENTY OF POWDER!”

On the morning of the second day after this, Chester lands at Sandwich, and by relays of horses travels as fast as is in man and beast to London.

Arriving at the capital, he learns that his sovereign and her court are at Hampton, and to his joy discovers from popular tongue that the Queen is enjoying the best of health. He is in time to prevent any attempt at Borgia business with the hope of the realm.

For at that time all true Englishmen, Catholics or Protestants, feared that by some underhand, insidious Italian plot, Elizabeth of England was in some way to be done to death and the kingdom given to her legitimate successor to the throne, Mary Queen of Scots, who was a prisoner in Elizabeth’s hands; one ambitious noble of Catholic faith, the Duke of Norfolk, being not only anxious to liberate the beautiful Mary and put her on the throne of England, but also to marry her and reign as Prince Consort. This would have placed Britain thoroughly under the influence of Philip II., of Spain, and have opened the way for his pet scheme, the establishing of the Inquisition in England, with all its horrors of burnings, flayings, and torturings as practiced in the Netherlands under similar circumstances by Alva, his Viceroy and lieutenant.

Better Englishman than bigot, Guy Chester, though a moderate Catholic, is exceedingly anxious for the safety of his Protestant Queen. [[113]]

All this makes Guy in desperate haste to give her warning of her danger at the hands of Ridolfi, Alva’s agent in London.

So, taking horse again, though thoroughly tired by his long ride from Sandwich, the young Englishman finds himself in the early evening at the palace of Hampton Court. There getting quick audience with Cecil, Lord Burleigh, he gives him the cipher letters from Vitelli to Ridolfi, and also the key furnished by Oliver.

Upon Guy’s hastily mentioning the purport of these letters, his lordship, with a very serious face, says: “You have done a great service to the State. But I imagine you have been riding all day. I will see that you have supper and refreshment,” and summoning a lackey, gives order to this effect. “By the time you have finished making yourself comfortable, I and my under-secretary will have translated and transcribed these letters for the Queen’s private eye. These you shall present in person to your sovereign, as is your right.”

This arrangement is very satisfactory to the young man, who has been in the saddle twelve hours and has partaken of but hasty refreshment on the road.

So an hour afterward Guy, his body made comfortable with food and his spirits heightened by wine, accompanies Lord Burleigh, who now holds England in his grasp, having the favor and confidence of his sovereign, to Queen Elizabeth’s waiting room, where they are received in rather off-hand style by Her Majesty of England, who is in great fashion of jeweled stomacher, above which her white shoulders glitter with necklace of pearls and diamonds. Very vain, as she has a right to be, as daughter of Anne Boleyn, the beauty of her father’s court, she stands in kirtle and long train covered with aglets inlaid with precious stones and high-heeled Spanish shoes, making a great show of vanity, sprightliness, dignity and domination. In short, she is good Queen Bess, at her best and bravest—at thirty-five—at her zenith—before age gets the better of her beauty and her temper.

“My good Burleigh,” she says, “what a hasty man you are. I have but just received your communication [[114]]saying time was important, and have omitted five courses of my supper and sent my tiring women where their prying ears will not catch private conference. And you, Master Chester, my robber of the sea, have you discovered another eight hundred thousand crowns of Alva’s money within my jurisdiction and government?”

“No,” answers Burleigh, as the two bow before her, “Master Chester has simply discovered a plot of my Lord of Alva against your life. These letters from Vitelli, his maréchal de camp and confidant to Ridolfi, the Italian banker of London, prove it.”

“Oho! in cipher,” says the Queen, looking at them.

“Yes, but thanks to Master Chester’s being willing to risk his life for Your Majesty again, he has obtained the cipher in Antwerp. These letters are now transcribed into English.”

“Quick—let me see!” And Elizabeth, sitting down and hastily glancing them through, cries out: “So they would poison me, and put that traitor Norfolk on the throne as consort to the lady whom I hold in my hand. That settles Norfolk! He was yesterday condemned for high treason by the Lords. These letters, my Burleigh, are his death warrant. With the lady I’ll reckon afterwards, and as for Ridolfi—”

“Orders have already been given to have Ridolfi seized, Your Majesty,” interjects Burleigh.

“Very well,” replies Elizabeth, “then there is nothing more to do for the present, though I shall change my cook; except”—here Her Majesty’s eyes light up—“except to reward this young gentleman whom we have outlawed for matters of State policy: but then, we love pirates! There is our Francis Drake, who thinks no more of despoiling a Spaniard and turning in ten per cent. of his booty than he does of eating and drinking. There’s old John Hawkins, who’ll steal blackamoors on the coast of Africa to sell them to the Dons and cut their throats while trading with them—all for the glory of England! In fact, I think, Burleigh, pirates are my best subjects. But since I have dismissed my own mummers this evening on your account Master Chester, I ought to have some compensation. Tell me the tale of your adventures in the Netherlands.” [[115]]

This Guy doing, Her Majesty listens with open ears and one or two little chuckles and slaps with her fan upon Burleigh, though at the mention of Doña de Alva they give earnest attention, especially at that portion of Chester’s story which refers to his various interviews with that young lady. And Guy, getting warmed up to his subject, his eyes brighten once or twice in mentioning the beauty of the girl.

“Odds bodkins!” cries Elizabeth, as he closes. “This is a story as romantic as the troubadours tell of Amadis de Gaul saving maidens from giants, as you did Miss Minx of Alva from the Sea Beggars. Egad, I’m afraid she has disturbed his loyalty, my Burleigh. When speaking of his Spanish wench, Master Chester looks at his sovereign of England in a manner that the Lords might condemn as high treason.”

“Ah, Your Gracious Majesty,” replies Guy, who is courtier as well as pirate, “if love is high treason, then every young man who gazes upon his sovereign of England is a traitor.”

His ardent glance emphasizes his speech, which is easy, as Elizabeth is in the zenith of her beauty—a beauty that is hardly understood now, most of her portraits having been taken when she was fifty and upward. But as Chester looks at her she is only thirty-five.

“And I will punish this audacious gallant,” she says, laughing, “though he is no traitor. Give me your sword, Guy Chester.”

The young man is about to unbuckle the weapon.

“No, naked, as you use it on my enemies!”

Drawing it from the scabbard and sinking on one knee, Guy, a sudden hope of unexpected glory coming to him, hands it to his sovereign.

“He is of good birth, Burleigh, I hear?”

“Your Majesty,” says Cecil, bowing, “on his mother’s side he has the blood of Lord Stanhope of Harrington. His father is cousin to the Stanleys and High Sheriff of Cheshire. His grandfather was belted knight.”

“Then,” says the Queen of England, “he shall be knight also!” And administers with dainty hand the accolade, saying: “Rise up, Sir Guy Chester!”

But Sir Guy does not rise before he does homage to [[116]]the fair hand that has knighted him so gallantly that Her Majesty gets red in the face, and cries out: “What new science in hand kissing has this Spanish girl taught him?”

Next the young man standing before her she tenders him his sword, holding it by the naked blade, the handle toward his hand, saying: “May you as belted knight use this as you have before to the terror of the enemies of England; especially he of Alva—do not spare him for his daughter’s sake.”

“No,” returns Guy, “for every blow I strike against the father brings me nearer to the daughter.”

“Odd stale fish!” jeers Her Majesty, “what does this new made popinjay of Chester think to do with the daughter of a prince?”

“To marry her, by God’s will and Your Majesty’s most gracious permission,” cries Guy, and retires with Lord Burleigh, leaving the Queen of England in very good humor with her new knight.

But notwithstanding Chester’s information has, perchance, saved the life of his Queen, Elizabeth, great sovereign as she is, has a strange parsimony in affairs of State, and though Guy petitions for money to refit his vessel and pay his crew, it does not come. So, being desperately anxious to get to the Netherlands again, he uses the hundred doubloons, the present from his sweetheart, to fit up his vessel against her father, devoting half of them to the embellishment and ornament of the cabins of the Dover Lass, making her staterooms so fine in woodwork and appointments that Harry Dalton, his first lieutenant, ejaculates: “By saucy Poll of Plymouth, one would think he meant this for a wedding cruise!”

But despite the hundred doubloons Chester soon finds himself without money sufficient to provision and make his vessel thoroughly effective, and goes up to London from Sandwich to make a final appeal to his parsimonious sovereign.

Expecting to do this through Burleigh, who possesses more than any one the royal ear, and who has always stood his friend, Chester is shown into his Lordship’s private cabinet one afternoon late in March, to find that nobleman in a brown study. [[117]]

“You’re just the man I wish to see, Sir Guy,” he remarks. “Tell me all about the Gueux, these Sea Beggars of the Netherlands.”

“That, my lord, I can do in very few words,” replies Chester. “They are men of all classes from Brabant, Flanders, Friesland, Holland—everywhere that Alva rules, driven by cruelty and persecution to take to the sea, for to live on the land means execution by fire, with torture additional. They have been outlawed on account of their resistance to Spanish tyranny. In it are men high in the councils of the Prince of Orange, who has attempted to regulate them by granting commissions, one of which I have the honor to hold, and the medal accompanying it I wear,” and he exhibits his badge of the Gueux to Lord Burleigh. “In it are all those driven from land to ship, from the Chevalier Van Tresslong and William de la Mark, the Lord of Lumey to Dirk Duyvel, whose name proclaims him a free and easy pirate. But why do you ask me about the Gueux?”

“For this reason. Twenty-five vessels manned by them are now in the harbor of Dover. They appeal to us for protection, provisions, water. Van Tresslong, and their admiral, De la Mark, are in London to ask assistance. We are nominally at peace with Spain and Alva, but I don’t like to refuse them hospitality.”

“Twenty-five sail—’tis a fleet! You must refuse them hospitality,” returns Guy.

“Why?”

“Please let me explain this to the Queen. Take me to her; I must have money for my ship.”

“Which I’m afraid Her Majesty will not grant very readily. She’s had a dozen new dresses this month—millinery bills in the female mind have the preference over naval equipment,” laughs Cecil; but orders his carriage.

So the two proceed to Westminster, where the Queen has summoned Burleigh, to obtain his advice before receiving the envoys of the Gueux.

“Zounds!” cries Her Majesty, “My Lord of Burleigh, I see you have brought another Gueux with you. Is he their ambassador also?” With this she looks at Guy frowningly, for the Gueux have bothered Queen Elizabeth’s mind for the last day or two. They are hungry [[118]]people, and she does not care particularly about feeding them; they are thirsty people, and she does not desire to diminish her exchequer to buy drink for them; but they are enemies of Alva, and she would like to succor them.