The First of the English: A Novel
“Was he killed there?”
“I think so, Your Highness; I saw him fall.”
“That’s very curious, when my daughter says he lives!” mutters the
Viceroy in an amazed tone. At this Mondragon and De Busaco open their
eyes, and the latter knows the catastrophe that he has sometimes
guessed might take place, will come.
“You saw him fall?” queries Don Fernando, as if he can’t believe his
ears.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And you think he is dead?”
“Yes, Your Highness, the Dutch butchered all our wounded.”
“As they always do,” answers Alva. “I’m afraid I taught them that
trick. They’re ready students. Is Gomez in waiting?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
And the bluff Sergeant stepping in, salutes with military precision my
lord of Alva and gives him information thus:
“Yes, I saw Guido Amati fall. I tried to save him, but slipped and
broke my head on the ice in doing it, but by the blessing of God,
escaped.”
“You know this man is dead.”
“Yes—ten saints could not have saved him.”
“Speak respectfully of the church! How do you know it?”
“Because I saw three pikes driven through his body.”
“That is sufficient,” mutters Alva in a dazed manner. “You can go,
Gomez.”
“And three pikes through the body would kill even as tough a fighter as
Guido Amati,” remarks Mondragon; but as the sergeant turns his back the
commandant suddenly says: “What is the matter, Your Highness. You have
had bad news from Haarlem?”
“Oh no, the best. They are eating grass in the streets now. We’ve
beaten Orange on the lake and dominate it. It is not Haarlem.” Then
Alva suddenly commands: “Order my escort at once. Is Gomez able to take
horse?”
“Yes, your Excellency.”
“Let him accompany them.”
And followed by thirty men armed with lance and arquebus, my lord of
Alva clatters back to the dwelling of his daughter. On the way he calls
to his side the bluff Gomez and questions him: “What kind of a looking
man was this Guido Amati?”
“Tall, well built, short crisp dark hair, eyes very black and reckless,
and a skin as swarthy as a washed-out Morisco.”
“He had the manners of a gentleman, of course,” remarks the Viceroy.
“As well as a soldier like myself could guess, your Highness, and the
tongue of one. It was said he spoke Castilian as purely as a priest.”
“Very good, that will do, sergeant,” says the Viceroy. And they soon
arrive at the country house.
But being a wary old tactician, my lord of Alva says nothing of the
strange revelation that has come to him at the Fort at Lillo, and
striding into Hermoine’s apartment, remarks: “My daughter, as we
promised we have returned to see this gentleman you love, Guido Amati;
who must be of wondrous strong frame.”
“How so?” asks the girl.
“He was desperately wounded at the Battle on the Ice.”
“I should think so! Haven’t I seen the wounds? They’re awful!” This
last is a piquant shudder.
“Seen the pike wounds through his body?”
“No, but there was a cut upon his head that would have let out the life
of any but a Paladin.”
“Humph! they say your Paladin is a dissipated fellow.”
“That’s a falsehood! some rival sends forth this story about him every
time. Why, even at the house of Bodé Volcker,” goes on Hermoine, “that
fibbing merchant told me he was drunk, when two seconds after my Guido
strides up to me as sober as you are, and a good deal happier looking,
and not with that extraordinary benumbed expression that’s on your dear
old face.” Here the girl kisses it.
“Tell me how you met him.”
Thus encouraged Doña Hermoine who, sweetheart like, loves to prattle of
her adored, sits down and makes confession to her father; during which
he asks her one or two questions she thinks are foolish, but he thinks
pertinent. “You say you first met him on the day of the spring flood of
1572?”
“Yes, papa; that was the night I told you of, when he protected me from
the Gueux.”
“A—ah—ah This gentleman you love has dark hair and eyes?”
“No, bright blue eyes, and his hair is for a Spaniard very blonde—Did I
not tell you so, Goosey!”
“Oh, yes; I meant bright eyes, I had forgotten. Light chestnut hair,
you say, and a free and easy manner. He walks like a sailor.”
“Like a cavalryman!”
“Ah, yes; they both have rolling gaits. The day you met him was the one
I came so hurriedly in from Brussels?”
“Yes, you came very hastily. It was the day Floris the Painter had that
drinking bout, and drank one of his opponents even unto death.”
“Yes, I recollect,” says His Highness slowly. “The day Guerra would
have made revelation to me, but died. This gentleman you say you love,”
my lord of Alva’s manner has a kind of forced lightness in it, “speaks
the patois of Hispaniola?”
“Yes, it is poor Spanish, but sounds very sweet to me.”
“Humph! when this gentleman arrives, bring him to me.” And going from
the apartment Alva gives some pertinent directions to the lieutenant in
command of his escort.
Then he returns to the dining-room, and, as it is nearly eight o
clock—has supper served to him.
To minister to his wants comes running in his daughter, her face as
radiant as a sunbeam. She who had been before to him as the lily is now
blushing as a rose.
As he sits down there is a very curious expression in my lord of Alva’s
face, and as he drinks there is a lump in his throat that nearly chokes
him, though he is abstemious this evening, his daughter notes, as she
serves papa with loving hands.
“You—you do not grieve at losing me?” she whispers, a ripple of concern
running over her face.
“No, it—it isn’t that.” His face has an expression Hermoine cannot
understand.
“By the by,” she says, “adored papa, another promise.”
“What?”
“Take off that reward for the Englishman’s head. You remember I told
you he saved my Guido’s life.”
“After to-morrow; then it may not be needed,” mutters His Highness,
though his eyes do not meet the girl’s; he keeps them on his wine cup.
“Thanks, dear papa,” answers the young lady. Then suddenly she says:
“But I must go.”
“Why?”
“To make toilet for my coming husband.”
“Humph!”
“I shall be dressed as a bride.”
“You love this man so very much, my Hermoine?” There is a sob in the
father’s voice.
“With my whole heart,” she answers; then suddenly cries: “Perhaps I
shall have another surprise for you to-night, if you’ll grant it, but
then papa you grant me everything!—you dear old papa who will make your
daughter’s happiness so very great this night.”
With this she puts tender kiss upon his brow and runs away, leaving her
father wondering to himself whether he has guessed right or not.
But all the same there are tears in his eyes that never shed them; and
once or twice when he hears his daughter’s voice from neighboring
apartment giving orders as to her toilet and other preparations for the
reception of the man she loves, his face has a horrified expression on
it. Then a minute after a gleam comes into the serpent’s eyes, and his
long hands clench themselves together as if seizing some enemy long
sought for and difficult to grasp, but very pleasant to his grip and
talons, and he mutters to himself: “If it is he who stole my gold for
that Jezebel Elizabeth; if it is he by whose advice the Gueux were
ordered out of England with no food, no water, but only cannon balls
and powder to stir up rebellion in this land, I’d sooner have him than
even William the Silent!”
CHAPTER XXII.
“OHO! THE FOX AT LAST!”
All this day during which his sweetheart has been obtaining papa’s
consent, Chester has worked like a beaver laying in winter store. The
seamen under Bodé Volcker’s direction have got out all the silver, some
of which is in ingots, the rest in Spanish dollars, into the cellar,
and by the very earliest sunrise at the opening of the city gates, the
first load comes into the hold of the Esperanza, for this is more
bulky, though not nearly as valuable, as the gold.
Working at this with that diligence that men always give to looting
treasure, they succeed in getting all of it into the hold of the
Esperanza by twelve o’clock in the day.
Martin Corker, who has been at the house of Mother Sebastian assisting
in the shipment since Chester has taken charge of the Esperanza, coming
down with the last load, says to his captain: “Bodé Volcker wants to
see you at the house of old Dumb Devil like a flash.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t bring out the chest of jewels. He feared some of the men
might buccaneer it on the sly, it’s so easily handled, and is probably
very valuable.”
With a muttered imprecation on the merchant’s commercial care, for
Chester is now anxious to set sail, he strides rapidly up to the house
of Mother Sebastian, and there finds Niklaas in company with four
seamen, the last who have remained in charge.
“Did I not tell you that I didn’t wish to make entry into the treasure
chamber during the day?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to take the chance of losing the jewels,”
returns the merchant.
“Well, since there’s no help for it,” Guy mutters, “I suppose I must go
in again.” This he does to find everything as before. Returning from
his journey under the moat to the vault below the great Bastion of the
Duke, bearing in his hand the chest that is presumed to contain jewels,
he laughs: “Everything is all right, this is the last of Alva’s
nest-egg.”
“You have locked all the iron doors?”
“Yes.”
Then they put the flagstones in place, closing up the entrance to the
vault, and bed down the stones of the cellar on top of it; next
sweeping the dust over it again and the seamen pocketing for luck money
a few stray coins that had fallen out of one of the sacks, the cellar
of Señora Sebastian is as they found it. Then Bodé Volcker leaving
another bottle of rum by the side of the snoring dumb woman, they shake
off the dust of the house with a sigh of relief from their feet.
“You have the clearance papers?” whispers Guy.
“Yes, I’ll get them at my office.”
“Very well, then we’ll hoist sail,” says the Englishman; and taking the
case containing the jewels in his own hands, though he has covered it
with a cloak, Guy goes on board the Esperanza.
Then his crew make ready to draw out from their moorings and go down
the Schelde, while Guy waits impatiently for his clearance papers, for
every instant seems an hour of agonized suspense to him.
As he stands gazing eagerly up into the streets of Antwerp, Bodé
Volcker makes his appearance, pale, agitated, hurrying as fast as his
fat legs can carry his fat body. He comes up the gang plank gasping and
holding out to Guy the papers, says: “Captain Andrea Blanco, your
clearances.”
“You are going on shore again?”
“No, as I’m a frightened man! God help me, I daren’t stay here. Take me
to the cabin, something terrible has happened.”
“What?” gasps Guy, though he gives orders to the men to cast off and
get under way. This they do in a flash and Martin Corker takes the
helm. As they sail down the Schelde Guy goes into the cabin and
whispers to the merchant, who is half fainting: “What’s the matter,
what’s frightened you so?”
“My God, my God! the hand moved!”
“What hand?”
“THE HAND ON ALVA’S STATUE!”
“Great heavens!—When?”
“When you went into the vault at twelve o’clock to-day, the right hand
of the statue of Alva moved. They’ll be at the house of the woman
Sebastian by this time. The statue guarded Alva’s treasure. God help us
if they get messenger to Lillo to stop vessels before we get down! The
garrison are talking about it as if it were supernatural. They say it
predicts the fall of Haarlem; but I know it predicts that people have
gone into Alva’s treasure house. That’s what the infernal statue was
put there for,” cries Bodé Volcker.
But the last of this speech is made to an empty cabin, for Chester is