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THE FIRST OF THE ENGLISH

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By ARCHIBALD C. GUNTER.

Uniform with this Volume.

  • MR. POTTER OF TEXAS.
  • THAT FRENCHMAN!
  • MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE.
  • MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK.
  • MISS DIVIDENDS.
  • BARON MONTEZ OF PANAMA AND PARIS.
  • A PRINCESS OF PARIS.
  • THE KING’S STOCKBROKER.

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[[Contents]]

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]]

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?”