The First of the English: A Novel
into laughter, then says very seriously: “What makes you take this
awful risk again, my Guido?”
“Bar the door and listen,” whispers the English captain. This being
done, he says under his voice: “On my last visit here I won the love of
Alva’s daughter. On this visit I shall win all Alva’s tenth penny
gold.”
“Diable! you’re crazy!”
“Harken to my story and see if I am,” and sitting down Chester tells
his strange tale of Paciotto’s revelation and post-mortem vengeance
upon the dictator of the Netherlands.
This wondrous story is listened to with exclamations of astonishment.
As he closes Guy exhibits the drawings of the keys and tracings of the
subterranean passage under the bastion, saying: “Now, do you believe?”
“Yes,” replies the painter slowly, “I do! Alva has made the troops
think the pedestal of his statue is his treasure house. Alva did know
that Flushing would be captured three days before it fell. Therefore he
must have sent Paciotto there with design. I believe you.”
“Then,” says Guy, “take a third of Alva’s gold and help me get it.”
“With all my soul!” answers Oliver enthusiastically. “My share shall be
devoted not to myself, but to my country. I’ll make war upon Alva with
his own tenth penny tax. But you’re hungry.”
“No, I dined on board ship.”
“Oho! a lover’s appetite.”
“Yes. How is she? You have been in Brussels—how is she?”
“Yes, I returned from there but two days ago,” replies the painter,
sighing. “I wanted to have a last go at my altar piece before I ran
away to the war.”
“You’re going to fight?”
“I must. With all the Netherlands rising up in arms, could I keep from
the field? Besides, the hand is getting closer to me. Soon I shall have
to fly. Nom de Dieu! that last was a narrow squeak,” continues Oliver,
“the day the news came of the taking of Briel by the Sea Beggars.”
“How? Were you in danger?”
“Judge for yourself. You know this tax is crushing everybody. The
bakers will not bake, the butchers will not slaughter, the people will
not trade. Now this did not please His Highness of Alva, so he sent for
the hangman and told him to make eighteen nooses and some twelve foot
ladders and take his orders from Don Frederico to hang in front of his
own door each of the eighteen principal bakers of Brussels, as a
warning to their fellows to go to baking at once. That very night the
news of the taking of Briel came and saved them, for the capital got
excited over it and Alva having other matters to attend to forgot the
bakers. In the morning I was sent for suddenly. ‘Oliver,’ says His
Highness, ‘Find me the fellow who manufactured that.’ And he poked
under my nose a caricature of himself looking eagerly about for his
spectacles, and written underneath:
“‘On April Fools’ Day,
Duke Alva’s Briel was stolen away.’
“Briel you know is the Flemish for spectacles. ‘This horrible and
audacious caricature’ went on His Highness ‘was found placarded near my
palace. Find me the villain painter of it.’ ‘How can I, your Highness?’
I gasped. ‘You can better than any man. You’re an artist’ snarled the
Duke. ‘Hang me if the fellow’s style of drawing isn’t something like
yours. He must have studied under the same master. Find me the
seditious dauber!’ So I went away, but my knees shook—for I was the
painter! But I can’t stand this dangling over boiling oil any longer,
and I’m going to fight—and die perchance; but like a man with a sword
in my hand, not like a criminal on the rack.”
“And Doña Hermoine,” interjects Guy, “how did it affect her?”
“What affect her?”
“The news of the taking of Briel.”
“I don’t believe she thought of it at all. Routs and fêtes occupy that
young lady’s time,” replies the artist “not politics. Besides, she has
an ardent admirer in General Noircarmes—”
“’S’death!—has she forgotten me?” mutters the Englishman.
“No I think it is because she remembers you.”
“How?”
“Well, for the first two weeks after you went away she was joy itself;
no face so radiant, no eyes as brilliant, no wit as flashing, in the
whole of Alva’s court, and there are many beautiful women in Brussels.
And then—”
“Well, what then?”
“Then she grew sad, and for a month or so had a very hard time of it.”
“What caused her grief? Do you know?”
“Yes, I can guess.”
“What?”
“You!”
“I!”
“Yes. Word came from Middelburg that you had been behaving very badly,
my boy,” says Oliver, with a little chuckle.
“I—badly?”
“Very badly!” guffaws Oliver. “The report was that on receipt of his
commission Major Guido Amati went on a most prolonged and excessively
hilarious debauch of joy.”
“Good heavens! The infernal villain!”
“He is,” assents Oliver. “It is said Major Guido Amati has the very
handsomest mistress in Middelburg.”
“Oh, God of heaven—a mistress!” shudders Guy.
“Parbleu! How moral you seem to have got,” jeers Antony.
“He’ll—he’ll ruin me! What an ingrate villain she’ll think me!
Damnation! to have my reputation hang upon this drinking debauchee,”
falters Guy. Then he cries out: “What shall I do? Advise me, Oliver. I
must go to Middelburg and meet him hand to hand; I must kill this
fellow before he ruins my every hope of happiness on earth.”
“Don’t,” chuckles Oliver, “for if you kill Major Guido Amati, Hermoine
de Alva will go in to mourning.”
“Mourning for him?”
“No, for YOU. If I am not mistaken she loves you very deeply. But your
conduct, my dear boy, has given her great unhappiness.” Then in spite
of himself the painter bursts into a laugh and jeers: “Diable, I see
you doing penance for Major Guido Amati’s sins at the feet of your lady
love! But come to supper.”
“I can’t eat. Don’t laugh at me.”
“Oh yes you can. If fair Hermoine didn’t have spasms of rage and
despair each time she thinks Major Guido Amati is a very wild, reckless
fellow, then it would be time to lose your appetite. When Doña Hermoine
de Alva ceases to care for what Major Guido Amati does, then let Guy
Chester despair.”
“On this view of the case I’ll go to supper with you,” answers Guy
heartily.
And the two go off, not to one of the great inns of Antwerp this time,
but to the near-by Tower of the Angels, where they get a fearful meal,
though Chester seems to have an appetite now—even for its unsavory
cuisine and sour wine.
Coming back from this they fall to discussing the immediate business of
Guy’s visit to this city of his enemies, and decide upon the following
plan: Chester is to go to work unloading his vessel in sailor style.
Oliver, from his knowledge of the town, is to make the necessary
investigations and have the keys manufactured.
“It wouldn’t be safe,” he says, “to have them all made by one
locksmith. I’ll make a copy of this drawing, placing the draft for each
key on a separate piece of paper. You keep the originals. I’ll leave a
draft of key number one with a mechanic that I know, the drawing of
number two with a locksmith in another part of the city. In fact, I’d
better have the other two keys made in other towns, as their guilds
bring workmen together and word might get about of our orders, for
these keys are very curious in their design, and will cost a good deal
of money.”
“As to that,” says Guy, “I’ve got plenty for the business.”
So it is finally settled that one key is to be made at Antwerp, one at
the near-by town of Malines, and the other in the capital itself.
Antony is also to investigate the house near the Esplanade and see if
it is as described and kept by the old deaf and dumb Spanish woman. “I
must go at once to Brussels to have the key made, leaving one on the
route at Malines,” says Oliver.
“Let me take the journey,” suggests Guy very eagerly. “You have work to
do here.”
“And haven’t you—unloading your ship. Besides,” replies Antony, “it
isn’t to have the key made that you want to go to Brussels. It is to
get word with Hermoine de Alva.” Then he goes on, sternly, “No matter
what she may do, no matter what she may think, keep away from her for
God’s sake, until this business is settled. Suspicion upon you now
would ruin everything. Forget you are Major Guido Amati de Medina, a
dashing soldier and lover of the Viceroy’s daughter; remember you are
only Andrea Blanco, a common merchant captain, who cares but for grog
and charter money; get to unloading your vessel to-morrow morning.”
“Very well,” mutters Guy, the painter’s advice being sound but
unpalatable. “I’ll get on board at once.”
“You can’t. You’ve got to stay with me to-night. The gates are closed
and you have no young lady to give you the word of the night or offer
you a government barge to take you safely out of Antwerp!” laughs
Oliver, then continues more seriously: “Tête Dieu! that was a narrow
squeeze. They had report you were here. Nothing on earth but Alva’s
daughter could have saved you. Remember that Hermoine de Alva that
night kept you and perhaps me from the faggot or the cord. And now five
thousand crowns on your head,” the artist sighs.
Notwithstanding this gloomy suggestion, these two young men, so
accustomed to danger, have a very pleasant night over a bottle of wine
in the painter’s studio, discussing Antony’s altar piece, which is
quite near completion, the beautiful eyes of Hermoine de Alva gazing
from the canvas upon her English sweetheart, as if welcoming him once
more, not to the city of his enemies—but to the city of his love.
CHAPTER XII.
“GET YOUR DAUGHTER OUT OF ANTWERP.”
The next morning each sets about the business he has given himself.
Chester goes down to the quay very early, fearing, perhaps, some
indiscretion of his seamen, who are not much accustomed to mercantile
ways, and warping his vessel up to the dock, begins to unload his cargo
with a speed that pleases his consignees very greatly.
Jan Olins comes down personally to inspect the discharging of the
vessel, and pats Guy upon the shoulder, saying: “You’re doing well,”
then goes down into the hold and himself carefully inspects all its
contents, rather to Chester’s surprise, but he, not being a merchant
captain, puts it out of his mind, supposing it is the custom for
traders to look thus carefully after their cargoes.
That afternoon Chester, still continuing his labor, suddenly bolts into
his cabin and locks himself in. For he has seen the junior partner,
Olins, approaching the vessel in company with Niklaas Bodé Volcker, and
fears recognition by the father of the fair Mina, whose hospitality he
has once enjoyed.
Fortunately they do not come on board, only inspecting the vessel from
the gang plank, and very soon they go away.
Shortly after this Chester goes up to the town to meet Oliver.
This gentleman reports as follows:
“There is a house as described and located by Paciotto, a tumble-down,
ramshackle old affair, in by no means a good neighborhood. It is kept
by an old deaf and dumb Spanish woman who goes under the name of Señora
Sebastian, but is commonly known by the sailors she takes as boarders
(this house being near the docks) as ‘Mother Dumb Devil,’ referring
probably to her temper.”
“That’s the place. I’ll put some of my men to lodge there at once,”
says Guy.
“Not yet, not until we get the keys. Use your men in discharging your
vessel as rapidly as possible. Key number one I have already ordered
made from its draft. Number three I will take to-morrow to Brussels,
leaving number two en route at Malines. Get your cargo out of your
vessel as fast as you can.”
“How long will you be in Brussels?”
“Until the key is made, probably five days,” replies Oliver.
“So long? You know speed is vital. I shall have my ship unloaded by
that time.”
“It can’t be done sooner. The locksmith says it will take him at least
four days to finish the one ordered here. Consequently it must be five