The First of the English: A Novel
beseeching the Prince of Orange to save his daughter.
“Not at all,” whispers Guy. Then he adds savagely: “Shut your
chattering teeth till you hear,” and seizing Niklaas’s arm leads him to
private converse.
“So you recognized me?” the Englishman says under his breath.
“Yes, but you are dead. The news came months ago to Antwerp that
Colonel Guido Amati was killed at the battle on the ice in combat with
‘The First of the English.’”
“No, I’ve recovered from my wounds!”
“Then, unfortunate man, if they discover you, a colonel in the Spanish
army, here, you’re no better than dead. But I will not betray you,”
mutters Bodé Volcker. “You saved my child once, to take her where she
is worse off.” Then he cries, wringing his hands: “Save her again, my
Mina! She’s in Haarlem, a refugee from justice. If they take the city
it is her death. You have Alva’s ear, plead with him. You have
influence with his daughter, speak to her!”
“That is unnecessary,” answers Guy, “I have saved your daughter
already.”
“Saved her? How? Where?
“Right here at the Gilded Tower.”
“Here! In Gods naam! You have saved her? Take me to her, my Mina who
was lost—my Mina who is found!”
And the old man, delirious with joy, fondles Guy’s hand and invokes
blessings upon him.
A minute after he turns to fly to the child he had grieved for, but Guy
stays him and says: “First I must tell you something.”
“What is it? Don’t keep me.”
“Only for her sake,” he answers, and pours out his tale of Oliver’s
death, then whispers: “Tell it to her—I tried but could not.”
In his story Chester is compelled to reveal to the merchant who he
really is, and this seems to take more hold upon Bodé Volcker than even
the painter’s death. He gasps astounded: “You! ‘The First of the
English?’ You! You came to Antwerp—did mortal man ever take such risk?
Ten thousand crowns are now put upon your head since the battle on the
ice. Why did you take such risk?” Here he suddenly cries: “Oh! Bij den
hemel! I see. You’re in love with Alva’s daughter.”
“Yes,” says Guy, who feels that he has now put this man under such
obligation that his secret is safe with him. “She is my affianced wife,
I am going to marry the Duke’s daughter.”
“Then you must hurry, young man, you must hurry,” says Bodé Volcker
solemnly.
“Why?”
“Because—Ah I guess the reason now!—it was after the death of Guido
Amati—she has become religious. It is said she will become a nun.”
“A NUN!” screams Guy. “Because she’s heard that Guido Amati is dead.
This is a rare and cruel joke!” and bursts, with sinking heart and
sickening soul, into hideous laughter, jeering at himself, as Bodé
Volcker hurries away to take his daughter once more to his arms.
BOOK III.
THE DUKE’S UNLUCKY PENNY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“IS IT A DREAM?”
From his interview with his daughter Bodé Volcker comes out a great
sadness in his Flemish eyes, and finding Guy waiting for him, breaks
forth: “This painter Oliver! What right had such a man to love anything
but his country? What right had he, with torture hanging over him, to
love my child?”
“The right that all men have to love the beautiful,” sighs Guy, Bodé
Volcker’s surprising revelations as Doña de Alvas’ convent yearnings
having made him not only romantic, but sad.
“But not the right to sacrifice the beautiful. Oliver’s treachery to
Alva put danger upon Mina, and now his death has broken her heart. She
cannot even go to her home for fear of Alva’s torture. Alva!” shrieks
the merchant, “who has brought this misery upon me and mine. Alva! who
has ruined me.”
“Ruined you? How?” queries Chester uneasily. He has been waiting for
the merchant, being in need of financial aid, and this talk of ruin
makes him anxious.
“How?” echoes Bodé Volcker. “First by destroying my home. Second by
destroying my business with his tenth penny tax, and third by taking
from me as a forced loan for the Spanish government five hundred
thousand crowns.”
“Do you want to get it back again?”
“Heavens and earth! Yes. The money is as good as lost. What wild talk
are you jabbering to me?” says the merchant derisively.
“It isn’t wild talk!”
“Not wild talk about Alva’s repaying his debts?”
“No, for I’ll pay them.”
“You—a fighting man—pay five hundred thousand crowns? Your sufferings
have made you crazy,” cries Niklaas, who thinks Guy is jeering him.
“Not at all. Advance me ten thousand crowns, stake your life as I stake
mine, and I’ll give you your five hundred thousand crowns and
vengeance.”
This comes in determined whisper from the Englishman, who has thought
this matter over, and concluded that, Oliver being gone, Bodé Volcker,
with his Antwerp storehouse, Antwerp ships and Antwerp knowledge, is
the man to aid him in this affair, if he has the nerve.
“Stake my life? I’ll stake it a hundred times to gain vantage of the
man who has robbed me!”
“Very well, come with me to my room, we must talk very privately of
this,” says Guy, who now feels pretty certain that though Bodé Volcker
might not risk his life for patriotism, he would risk it a dozen times
over to get back his five hundred thousand crowns. But it is not this
man’s motives he cares for, but this man’s action.
Arrived at Chester’s room the merchant says: “What do you want?”
“First I want a hundred crowns to pay John Haring, who has helped me
get your daughter out of Haarlem.”
“I will—I’ll give Haring a thousand. And I’ll give you my love, my
devotion, whatever else you want for saving my Mina from despair and
death,” answers the merchant in grateful voice.
“Your life, perhaps.”
“Yes, I’ll give that too, to get vantage of Alva.”
“Then,” says Guy, “listen to me.” And swearing Bodé Volcker very
solemnly to secrecy, he tells him everything—everything connected with
Alva’s statue, everything connected with Alva’s treasure, for he
believes in no half confidences to this man, the risk of whose life he
demands for his own selfish purpose.
“Very well. What do you want me to do?” answers the Dutchman, his eyes
lighting up as he hears of Alva’s buried treasure, the joy of pirate
plunder coming into his merchant’s soul. “Should I not have a little
more—interest, at least?”
“Yes, interest—six hundred thousand, or, as your life is worth
something—we’ll make it seven hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Very well—to business! What do you want?”
“First, for time presses, I want clearance papers procured as soon as
possible from the town of Amsterdam for the Esperanza that I have still
at Flushing harbor. Can you procure them?”
“From Amsterdam? Impossible. But I can get you clearance and cargo from
Stockholm.”
“That will take two weeks—some nearer port!”
“From Dunquerque? That’ll only take three or four days.”
“From Dunquerque! All right,” answers Chester. “With the Esperanza I
shall go, consigned to you, as Captain Andrea Blanco, once more right
into the harbor of Antwerp and lay there till I get Alva’s treasures
and Alva’s daughter or lose my life. It isn’t known in that town that
you came here?”
“No, I was very careful about that,” says Bodé Volcker. “They think I
am in France buying Lyons’ silks. I’ll sail with you from Dunquerque
myself. That’ll make everything seem very right—Lyons’ silks from a
French port.”
“And afterwards if it is discovered you’ll lose your life.”
“That’s all right,” says the Dutchman. “Antwerp’s commerce is going to
the dogs and I’m going to leave it with whatever money I can gather
together. That seven hundred and fifty thousand crowns will help me.”
So all the arrangements are made and every little detail settled, even
to Mina’s remaining quietly in Delft, which is the best place for the
poor girl at present.
“She has no heart for anything,” mutters Bodé Volcker, then grinding
his teeth, adds: “But I’ll have revenge upon the man who would have
sent her to the lash and Spin-house, and because I am her father,
robbed me of five hundred thousand crowns.”
This very night Guy takes a purse of gold to John Haring, of Horn, and
putting it into the man’s hands says: “This is your reward for the
danger and trouble that have come to you for my sake!”
“Donder en Bliksem!” ejaculates the Holland fisherman. “This is more
money than I ever saw before. I don’t want anything for doing a kind
act.”
“You’ve a wife and children, take it for them and for your expenses
returning to the North, where I wish you to go for me on a special
errand.”
So it is arranged that Haring departs at once for North Holland, taking
orders with him to Dalton to bring the Dover Lass straight to Flushing,
and, not finding Guy and the Esperanza there, to sail the ship at once
to the South Beveland shore and anchor in the Krom Vliet. There will
not be any great risk in this, nearly all the Spanish galleys having
gone to Amsterdam to help the Haarlem leaguer.
The next morning Haring leaves for the North, and Guy and Bodé Volcker
take boat to Flushing, where the Esperanza is lying.
Guy has left some ten men on board this ship, and they are sufficient
to navigate it to Dunquerque, where he takes cargo from Bodé Volcker’s
agents at that place and obtains proper clearance papers to Antwerp.
Setting sail from this port they make Flushing, to find to Chester’s
delight the Dover Lass already there, Haring has traveled so rapidly,
Dalton has obeyed his orders so promptly, and the Dover Lass, the ice
having all melted in Enkhuysen harbor, is so fleet under favorable
breezes.
“By all the mermaids!” cries his first officer, on seeing his captain,
“we thought you dead—drowned at that cursed Diemerdyk fight. This is
glorious news.”
“I’ve got better for you,” laughs Guy.
“What’s that?”
“Money to pay off the crew!” At which the British tars set up a wild
cheer and become very happy indeed.
Then drawing upon Bodé Volcker’s money bags Chester makes settlement
with his mariners.
The next morning taking many of the crew who had gone with him to
Antwerp before, and the Dover Lass accompanying him as far as Krom
Vliet and anchoring there, just off the South Beveland shore, Guy
proceeds to Antwerp, passes the guard boat off Lillo, and hauls up to
the city docks, more impatient to get at Alva’s daughter than Alva’s
treasure.
He knows he must make quick work of this. During his fights and
skirmishes his face has become known to many Spanish soldiers, and
though most of these are up in Holland, a few are here on sick leave.
Fortunately these are mostly confined to bed and chamber, as only the
desperately wounded come from the front, Spain having need of every man
to carry on the siege of Haarlem—but still with ten thousand crowns
upon his head, “The First of the English” is now in fearful jeopardy.
Letting no time pass Chester, disguised as completely as possible as
Captain Andrea Blanco, goes up to the merchant’s house to make
arrangements for unloading his cargo. They are in earnest conversation,
Guy charging Bodé Volcker, who has now gone into this business of
stealing Alva’s treasure with heart and soul, to discover all about the
house of the Spanish woman, Señora Sebastian, when great and sudden joy
comes to his soul.
He hears the voice of the Countess de Pariza in the salesroom just off
the little counting room where he is holding converse with the
merchant. This voice he has always before considered harsh, unpleasant
and uninviting, but now it seems to him as sweet as an angel’s, as it
says: “I have called to price and buy some white French muslin for my
charge, Doña de Alva. You need not measure many yards, the lady
Hermoine soon goes to Spain to enter a religious house.”
“Shall I deliver the goods at the Citadel for your ladyship?” asks the
obsequious clerk.
“No, I’ll take them with me. The weather has been so pleasant that Doña