The First of the English: A Novel
captains, “we’ll finish the wounded at our leisure. On for those who
are not hurt,” and the Gueux speed on like swallows in their flight.
So it comes to pass that the Spanish commander hears behind him
suddenly a whirring sound as the irons cut the ice, and looking
backward, skimming like birds, come four hundred Dutch and English, not
half the number he is bringing back.
Turning his men he would form them to receive attack, but they are not
quick enough. The rapid skates bear the Dutch and English upon them
like charge of cavalry, the slippery ice impedes them, and in a minute
the Spanish formation is dashed to pieces, the ice becoming the scene
of hundreds of individual combats, the Hollanders and the English
having the best of it, attacking whom they like, retreating when they
please.
It is a funny affair, though blood flows like water, and men die
shaking with merriment—the guffaws mingling with death shrieks. Guy
himself, as he cuts down a man, laughs at the fellow’s headless corpse
turning a somersault upon the slippery ice. One Spaniard running,
pursued by a Dutch skater, throws himself desperately upon the ice, and
the Dutchman goes headlong over him, but being quick with his feet,
gives his antagonist a lucky jab in the eye with his sharp Friesland
skate, and the Spaniard is dead before the Dutchman recovers his feet.
After the first rush, Guy’s eye is on the leader of the Spanish troops,
and the leader of the Spanish troops has his eye on him.
Till now the Castilian has fought very silently and very deadly; though
not accustomed to the ice, his skill at fence is so great that two or
three Dutchmen have gone down before him wounded, and one English
sailor will never see his mother again, by force of his Toledo blade.
The Spaniard now cries: “Come on, I know you. You are the First of the
English. Come on, and though you have wings, I’ll clip them!”
This kind of a challenge is not to be ignored by English knight. It is
a kind that prevailed in the days of chivalry, not quite faded out of
England, and Chester accepts it.
Then the two come together, the Englishman’s heavy sword giving play
against the more subtle and delicate point of the Toledo, and were not
Guy armored in steel this day would be the last of him.
The Spaniard has a wrist of steel and his sword’s play is of the finest
Italian school; but Guy makes his heels save his head. This angers the
Spaniard, and he grinds his teeth—while Chester deftly “grinds the
bar,” a skater’s trick that enables him to circle round the Castilian,
giving him two cuts that even his skill of fence can hardly parry.
The next shoot round his enemy Guy gets his blade on his man, wounding
him slightly. But carried forward in making a cut, one of Sir Guy
Chester’s knightly spurs catches in his skates and he were lost did he
not by quick action drop sitting down on both skates and glide from his
antagonist.
He is half a hundred yards away before he turns to find himself face to
face with poor little Ensign de Busaco, who is having a hard time of
it, being slightly wounded; his heavy Jack boots impeding his progress
on the ice.
Chester is just in time to recognize the little Spanish ensign and save
his life, as two or three Beggars of the Sea are almost upon him, and
in another minute De Busaco would sleep with his fathers.
The instinct of comradeship born in Antwerp is in Guy’s heart, and his
right arm knocks up two pikes that lunge at the little ensign, he
crying to him: “Surrender to me; surrender to me, fool!” For the little
Spaniard, with drawn sword, is striving to do his best for himself.
But just at this moment, taking lounge en tierce, the poor little
fellow’s legs fly under him and his head goes down with a tremendous
crack upon the ice that would stun him were it not for his steel
head-piece.
“He’s mine!” says Guy, beating back the swords; “He is my prisoner.
Surrender, you idiot Busaco!”
“I yield,” says De Busaco, sullenly. Then he suddenly smiles and cries:
“Mon Dieu! Captain Guido Amati! Yes, I surrender to you. What ransom
shall I pay to save my life? You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
“No, Busaco, you are safe. Twice you saved my life, and didn’t know it.
Now I save yours.”
“Yes,” says the other; “that was curious, wasn’t it? Captain Guido
Amati! From the flag flying at your masthead you are now called the
First of the English?”
It is a foolish speech and nearly costs him dear, for the Englishman
knows that this recognition, if reported at Spanish headquarters, means
no more chance of Guido Amati’s interviews with Alva’s daughter. He
says: “Yes, the First of the English, but no ransom from you.”
“No ransom,” mutters De Busaco, “I suppose you are going to kill me
because I know your secret?”
“No! Swear to me by everything upon this earth you will never recognize
me as the First of the English, were I to stand in Alva’s own hall
before you. There’s five thousand crowns upon my head; but swear you’ll
never know me as First of the English, only as Guido Amati.”
“I swear it by this cross my mother gave me,” says the little Ensign,
putting crucifix to his lips. Then he laughs and adds: “The oath wasn’t
necessary. I had known this before.”
“When—how long!”
“Ever since three weeks ago I met the real Colonel Guido Amati. You’ve
been promoted, you know.”
“And you never mentioned this, even to Amati himself?”
“No—to no living soul!”
“Why not?”
“Santos! it involved the secret of a lady.”
“God bless you,” says Guy, hugging his prisoner to his heart. “It did,
perchance, involve the good name, but not the honor, of a lady.”
“Oh, every one knows that Doña de Alva is a saint. Funny, she should
love you. Curious—”
But they have no time to discuss it further. Chester seizes the young
man by the hand, drags him over the ice, and to ensure his safety goes
with him almost to Amsterdam. In this, Guy almost endangers his own
life, for Spanish troops come out to meet them; so he leaves his charge
with a squeeze of the hand and a “God bless you. Remember!”
“Don’t doubt me. I’ve seen her look at you. I know she loves you, and
no one would injure her heart—but look out, my men are coming!” cries
De Busaco.
Turning back on his skates Chester makes for his ship, near which he
finds Antony and two or three others bending over the body of the
Spanish officer Guy had left so suddenly.
“They killed him after you went on,” remarks Oliver. “I have kept them
away from his body because of you. He was a very gallant gentleman.”
“Because of me?” cries Guy. “Do you think I will gloat over a fallen
hero. Still if accident had not come to me I should have finished him
myself, I think, though he had a rare sword’s play in his arm.”
“That would have been horrible,” says the painter.
“Why?”
“You would have committed suicide.”
“Suicide! What do you mean?”
“I mean that there will be weeping soon from eyes you love, when your
death is reported to her.”
“Buffoon! What do you mean?”
“I mean that this is Colonel Guido Amati, the man Hermoine de Alva
thinks you are!”
“Good heavens!” says Chester, bending over the dead man.
“I’ve searched his person and taken his valuables; not for myself, but
for transmission to his family,” adds the painter; “but this letter
concerns you.”
Hastily looking at the document by the light of the Northern sun that
is sinking in the west, Chester gives a sudden start. It is in the
handwriting he knows and loves, and has seen so little of, but does not
forget, and reads:
“God bless you, gallant one; you have become a Colonel. That
promotion was quick, wasn’t it? That was my doing. A word of advice
to you, my hero. Capture or slay the First of the English, and you
are sure to be a general; that will bring you to the church door,
where Hermoine awaits you.”
“Good God! This is horrible,” mutters Guy. “Sent by the woman I love to
kill me. And now she will weep for him.”
“Yes, and the more she weeps for him the dearer she loves you. You’re
not dead yet. Oh, wonderful transformation scene. Fancy Hermoine’s eyes
when she sees the dead alive. Oh God! if I could look upon the eyes of
my love who is over there,” Oliver points toward Haarlem. “Guy, help me
to save her.”
A moment after Antony suddenly cries: “Mon Dieu! what’s the matter with
you?” for the Englishman is leaning heavily on him, and is muttering:
“A—a bullet must have got through my breast-plate!”
Tearing off the steel the painter finds it has, though the wound is not
a deep one.
Continued loss of blood through all his violent exertions makes him
faint and weak, and Chester is carried upon his ship.
The Dutch captains yet look very solemn; if this cold continues, the
ice will still enclose their vessels and they must be attacked by the
great army at Amsterdam, who will never forgive them now they have
slain four hundred of the best Spanish troops.
“It will take miracles to save us now!” remarks ’t Hoen. “The tide must
rise—the wind must come—the ice must melt all at one time. It has
happened, but no man has ever seen it, so I suppose old Jan Veeder, our
dominé, would call it a miracle—Jan Veeder, who will preach my funeral
sermon next week!”
But that very night the providence of God that sent the cold, gives
them one chance of escape, the last of that winter, for the miracle
does happen. The strong wind and high tide and mild thawing weather
come together and the tide is high enough for them to pass over the
Pampus. The wind blows the sea about smashing the rotten ice and
bellies out their sails as the four ships, setting every rag they can
carry, beat their way to the north, and the next morning are safe in
their harbor of Enkhuyzen.
But Chester knows very little about this. He is raving with the fever
of his wound.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BERSERKER OATH.
In the course of time Chester recovers from Spanish bullet wound,
though not very rapidly, the surgery of that day being crude,
unscientific and quite often deadly. When he regains his strength he
finds the Dover Lass frozen in at the harbor of Enkhuyzen.
Guy perceives they have made a terrible mistake in sailing to the
northward. Had they remained at Delft they would probably by this time
have got the girl out of Haarlem over the frozen lake.
Now, between them and the hapless city stands the great dyke along the
Y, patrolled by Alva’s soldiers, protected by Alva’s forts, cutting off
North Holland effectually from giving succor to the besieged.
His vessel will be useless for several months on account of the ice,
and besought by Oliver, who has divided his time between nursing his
wounded comrade and making desperate attempts to elude the vigilance of
Alva’s troops and get to Haarlem, Chester finally makes his way across
Waterland to Egmont. Here Diederick Sonoy, who holds North Holland for
the Prince of Orange, is getting together an expedition to attack the
Diemerdyk at some vulnerable point and fortify it, cutting off
Amsterdam and the Spaniards from supplies, as they have been cutting
off Haarlem.
“Pardieu!” remarks Oliver, as they make the journey over frozen lakes
and by villages half buried in snow, “if I had had my altar piece with
me I could have finished it between skirmishes. I’ve done nothing for
my art, nothing—even for my love.” He wrings his hands desperately.
“What have I done for mine?” mutters Guy.
“Diable!” says the painter, who guesses what is in his companion’s
mind. Alva’s treasure will be undisturbed until the Duke leaves the Low
Countries. Not even riot of unpaid troops will make him disgorge it. It
is salted down for the winter.
“You are sure the Duke has no hint of your having the keys made?”
interjects Guy uneasily.