Part 3

"Calm down, Myga, calm down. I'd gladly take you with me right away, and there'd be a boat ready to take us on board, but listen down there in the streets--the whole town knows now that men from the black galley are concealed in disguise within its walls. Just listen to the rumpus. Making a run for it would be no good as there's no chance of us getting through unscathed. Sit down and stop trembling like that. We're still safe and time is the best counsellor. Think about those times when we'll be sitting round the fire in wintry Amsterdam. Ha ha, let them look for me down there. Jan Norris has always been too quick and too cunning for them. It would also be a pity for the fellow if they hanged him, wouldn't it, Myga?"

"Oh Jan, Jan!"

"Never mind. Give me a kiss and then another one and then I'll tell my story. So there I sat biting my lips till they bled, but not missing a word of the conversation going on near me and the rogues kept chattering on and complimenting themselves on their stroke of genius. Then they drained their glasses, got up and would have gone out only they were detained at the door by great to-do. A lad was being brought in on the shoulders of two strapping youths and a loud hurrah went up when the topers in the tavern spotted him. The lad in question was the cabin boy from the Immaculate Conception, who alone had survived out of the whole crew and had made his way to land through mad perambulations via sea and air. Everyone wanted to see this lad. Everyone wanted to talk to him and they all pressed up against him, reaching out to him their tankards and jugs. I thought it best to make use of this diversion to slip away unnoticed. I crept out keeping as close as possible to the walls and had almost got to the door when it was my misfortune to catch the eye of the cabin boy, who was still crouching on the shoulders of his carriers. The lad stared at me as if he had seen a ghost, went white as chalk and shouted at the top of his voice: "Help! Help! Ecco! Ecco! He's one of them! Help! Arrest him!" "Who is? What's all this?" the customers bellow and each of them looks at the lad and their neighbours. "There, there, where the table is. Arrest him. He's one of those sea beggars, the one who struck down Captain Perazzo, one of the crew of the black galley." What came next was pandemonium. All eyes were focused on me. All swords flew out of their sheaths. I too had got my knife out to sell my life if needs be as dearly as possible. Now they threw themselves at me, but I was faster on my feet than they were, grabbed the nearest bench and flung it at the feet of the first wave of attackers so that a pile of them stumbled over it and fell against one another onto the floor. I made use of this brief opportunity to jump into the thick of it, hitting out to right and left with my knife into upturned faces. I reached the door. I was outside in the street. Behind me I could hear the noise of my pursuers. Thanks be to God that I know Antwerp like the back of my hand. I get chased all over the place, but I manage to lose them with adroit twists and turns. I take them down blind alleys and double back on myself. On the quayside all is still. My trusty key opens up a well-known door and I've taken refuge here, Myga, in order to rescue you. But still they didn't give up hope of hanging a sea beggar. The whole of the garrison came after me if truth be known. A great honour, men! Thank you most kindly!"

Jan Norris listened with a laugh on his lips. Myga van Bergen trembled at the noise in the streets below.

"Dearest, dearest Jan, are you quite sure that no-one has seen you come into this house? Listen. They're coming this way. Oh God, look out of the window--torches and spears--heaven above, they're knocking on the door. They're looking for you, Jan. Lord have mercy on us. We're lost. We're lost."

The front door flew open, people appeared to be forcing their way into the house. Jan Norris gritted his teeth and seized his knife by the hilt.

"Calm down, calm down. It's not possible. Calm down, Myga."

"They're coming. They're coming," screamed Myga. "They're coming upstairs. They're going to find you. Jan, Jan, let me die at your side!"

The young man was as pale as death.

"How could I have been so careless as to endanger you, Myga? That was an awful thing to do. By my oath as a sea beggar, they really are coming upstairs. What's to become of you, Myga?"

"Let me die at your side, Jan!" breathed Myga, clinging to the chest of her betrothed.

IV. The Raid.

Not only was Leone della Rota at home in the Alcantara Arms, but in all the taverns of an Antwerp full of drinking dens. He had dragged his friend and captain, Antonio Valani, on this particular evening to the Golden Lion, and reluctantly, as usual, the captain had followed him there.

Who could resist Leone della Rota when he had a plan to put into action?

More reckless than malicious, the young lieutenant looked upon the world as a great playground and the war as a splendid chance to execute daring schemes unhindered. He saw the abduction of the poor small abandoned orphan, Myga, as a daring, playful scheme, an honourable thing as far as he was concerned, and had taken it into his addled pate to carry it out only after having convinced his friend with difficulty to agree to it. What did this Genoese good-for-nothing care about the affairs of the rebel provinces and His Spanish Catholic Majesty? Heretic women could be very pretty and female members of the one true church extremely ugly. Leone definitely preferred charming heretics to ugly Catholics and did all that he could not to depart from the old proverb that went the rounds in Italy about his home town, namely that Genoa has a sea without fish, a landscape without trees and men who cannot be trusted.

In the Golden Lion he had, as we know already from the tale told by Jan Norris, made the final arrangements with Antonio Valani as to the planned abduction. If this came off and the Andrea Doria got back safely from its expedition, the black galley would either have been taken as a prize or sunk. Who would dare then to point the finger at the victors? If the galleon did not come back, then its last deed would have been worthy of its end. The possibility of a third state of affairs, in which the Andrea Doria returned home without having seen the enemy ship, was unthinkable and held by Leone della Rota to be beneath his dignity. The captain allowed himself to be led by Leone however and wherever he wished.

The two friends from Genoa had taken not the slightest part in the pursuit of the bold sea beggar. They wandered arm in arm through the streets in which an excited crowd was milling in the direction of the quayside.

"We'd have been fools to have run after that scoundrel!" laughed Leone. "Leave it to others to chase that audacious beggar. By the doves of Aphrodite, since I've been serving the formerly cold Antonio Valani as a pathfinder in the magic kingdom of love, my soul hovers high over this land of mists. Oh Love, tamer of hearts, I follow your battle standard, oh goddess of Cythera, place us under your divine protection!"

"I beg you, Leone, be sensible. Don't be a fool. I'm in a strange mood. In all my life I have never had such a feeling in my breast. Leone, it's as if--Leone, all day and all night I have such strange thoughts. Leone, be prepared, perhaps you will soon take over from me as captain of the Andrea Doria..."

"And you'll be a rear admiral to Federigo Spinola."

"Or a corpse at the bottom of the sea," murmured the captain.

"What? Thoughts of death? Thoughts of death under the window of the girl of your dreams?" laughed the lieutenant. "By all that's holy, that's a splendid thought. Would that I were Petrarch to compose a sonnet on this wonderful mood. Look, you dreamer, here we are directly under the window of your beloved--her light is still shining--what a thought! Antonio Valani, friend of my youth, to scare away your intimations of mortality, let's now, right this minute, pay a visit to the sweet child who lives up there."

"Leone!"

"Let's search her house. All mad ideas would be most welcome! Forward in the name of the king! Forward in the name of love!"

"Leone! Leone!"

"Let me be," snorted the lieutenant. "I ask you, can the beggar that these boorish fellows are looking for not just as easily have crept into the lodging of the little one as into any of the other houses of this town? Forward, Antonio, you worry too much. We'll carry out a house search of your fair beloved's and familiarize ourselves thereby with the position of the house for tomorrow night."

Before the captain could hold his wild friend back, the latter had dashed to Myga's door against which he pounded with his fist, calling out in a loud voice:

"Open up! Open up! Open in the name of His Catholic Majesty of Spain! Open up! Traitors and enemies have sought shelter in this house!"

Immediately there streamed from all sides soldiers, sailors and citizens of Antwerp towards the door that led to Myga's lodging. The crowd of people grew from one moment to the next. Half in desperation Captain Valani tried to put a stop to the noise being made by his crazy friend, but it was already too late. The front door opened and the inhabitants of the building in which Myga lived, a carpenter, a cobbler and a town clerk, along with their families and companions, a widow with several children, cowered fearfully in their corners, horrified by the thought that one of the Dutch rebels must have sought shelter under their roof. Only a bent very old woman strode bravely forth with a lamp in her trembling hand in the direction of the intruders and insisted in a screeching voice that no-one had slipped into the house and certainly not a sea devil from Zeeland. God forbid she should grant protection to any of the sea beggars--had not her husband, her poor departed husband, been thrown from his fishing smack into the water by those raging pirates and come to a wretched end? But what good were her asseverations? Nobody listened to them and the house was full of Spanish soldiers, Italian sailors and the dregs of the streets. Cries of fear and woe rang out from the various dwellings. There were a few beatings-up and a certain amount of harassment accompanied by some plundering.

"Forward, Antonio! Don't hold back!" cried Leone. "Forward and upward to a realm of heavenly bliss!"

He was holding the old woman by the collar and forcing her to light the way with her lamp making merry threats the while.

"Cheerfully, cheerfully, little mother! The others are looking down below. We are going to look upstairs--forward and don't be so prudish. I'm not looking at your calves. Hey, Antonio, don't get left behind, will you?"

"Leone, for heaven's sake!"

"Che importanza? Keep going, fair maid. What a rabbit you are, Antonio, when it comes to such a sweet adventure! What would become of you if you didn't have me with you? Well, that seems to be the last step. We've made it! Here, here, Antonello--in the name of the king, open up, open up! Traitors and beautiful women have hidden themselves away in here. Open up! Open up in the name of the king! In the name of His Catholic Majesty of Spain, come out of your nest, pretty bird, open up and let us see your sweet rebel heart!"

With his mouth wreathed in smiles the madman caught the captain by the shoulder and pushed him towards the door, which he threw wide open. The two natives of Genoa stood there dumbfounded, scarcely able to believe their eyes!

Jan and Myga had been listening to the noise in the streets with growing apprehension and alarm. When pandemonium finally broke loose in the house, Myga had begged Jan in desperation to hide.

But what could happen for both of them to be saved?

The next minute it was all too late. Leone della Rota had climbed the stairs all too quickly.

In his left arm Jan Norris grasped the unconscious Myga while his right hand reached convulsively for naked steel. He did not know what he had to be about as all presence of mind had deserted him in those last frightful few seconds. And besides what good would any amount of presence of mind have been to him? Jan Norris and Myga van Bergen were lost as far as human reason was concerned.

"In the name of all the devils, what's all this?" cried the Genoese lieutenant. "Well, that's not bad. That's a strange encounter for sure. That's what I call killing two birds with one stone. Antonio Valani, now you can win your fair dove for yourself. Have you not allowed yourself to dream of having such a rival? Down with the beggar! To the gallows with him!"

Genoese swords flew from their scabbards.

"God protect you, Myga!" shouted Jan Norris, swinging his own blade. "Get back, you foreign rogues!"

Uttering the beggars' piercing cry: "Sultan before Pope!" the helmsman of the black galley eluded the guard of Leone della Rota's sword, stabbed out and with a cry Antonio Valani, the captain of the Andrea Doria turned and stumbled, his sword falling clattering from his hand and with it Antonio valani himself. The sea beggar leapt over the body of the Genoan while a second thrust merely grazed the lieutenant's left shoulder. Sailors from the Andrea Doria invaded the stairs, brandishing their ship's knives. A wild and bloody struggle developed in a confined space and all this time Myga van Bergen lay unconscious on the floor. Spanish and Albanian soldiers added to the turmoil, lamps and torches went out, glimmered on the floor and were re-lit. Few people knew what was really going on and when suddenly the cry: "Fire! Fire!" echoed through the house, the confused throng fled in panic and back down the stairs. Dense choking smoke filled all the rooms in the house and through it the Genoese sailors dragged their mortally wounded captain and the chained sea beggar, Jan Norris! Leone della Rota carried the senseless Myga through the smoke down to the street where a new fight was threatening to break out between the sailors of the Andrea Doria and Spanish soldiers who tried to wrest their prisoner away from the former. But a drumroll proclaimed the arrival of a high-ranking officer to whom Leone reported insofar as the trance-like state he found himself in allowed him to. The Spaniard airily expressed the opinion that the best thing would be to carry the wounded captain, the sea beggar and the woman aboard ship, then early the following morning all would be ready for the trial and anyway the prisoner deserved to be hanged from a yardarm as a pirate so that his immediate removal to the galleon was, from this point of view too, the most fitting solution to the problem.

The crowd was thronging round the quayside down below. Torches cast light on the wild procession and projected their flickering reflections over the wounded Antonio, the unconscious Myga and Jan Norris in chains who allowed himself to be dragged along by his fierce foes apathetically. Still Leone della Rota was holding Myga in his arms, but without understanding how this had come about. Everything was turning around and around in his head. As if in a dream he carried his light burden on to the galleon.

In the cabin a place was prepared for the wounded captain. A surgeon came to examine the injuries of the still unconscious Antonio and to shake his head over them. Myga van Bergen crouched in a corner of the cabin with no-one, for the time being, bothering about her. The helmsman of the black galley was chained to the main mast and his pitiless enemies surrounded him sneering.

Only late on did the tumult die down in the town, after the fire in the burning house behind the sea wall had been extinguished. Earlier it was quiet on board the Andrea Doria. Antonio lay motionless in the place assigned to him and Leone sat equally motionless next to him while Myga crouched in the darkest, most far away corner of the cabin. Over the whole ship scarcely a sound could be heard other than the murmur of the river, the noise of the rigging swaying in the wind and the pacing of the sentry who, with a loaded musket and a slow-burning match walked up and down before the prisoner chained to the mast and did not take his eyes off him for an instant.

At two o'clock in the morning the wind died down completely and even the creaking noise made by the rigging ceased. It was as silent as the grave aboard the Andrea Doria--a deep silence that was suddenly and all the more spinetinglingly broken by a shout and the noise of a shot.

Out of the cabin rushed Leone della Rota onto the deck. From their bunks and hammocks rushed out ordinary sailors.

The place formerly occupied by the prisoner at the main mast was empty. The sentry stood there with a smoking musket, casting around him confused glances, besieged by the questions and the oaths of both officers and crew.

"There he is, there! Man overboard!" went up the hoarse cry from the chest of the dumbfounded man.

"Where? Where? Where?"

Everyone rushed to the side of the ship.

"Down with the boats! Quickly! Quickly!" rapped the lieutenant's commanding voice.

It was lively on the Scheldt where lights were shining through the night, but the nights are dark in November. A corpse heading downstream was fished out of the water, but it was not that of Jan Norris. Going downriver, on both banks, alarm signals were flying, but the efforts of all the ships' boats sent out from Antwerp were in vain.

Had Jan Norris been rescued? Had he been killed by the waves?

Who could say?

But how Myga van Bergen sat up in her corner listening when she heard that her beloved had burst free from his bonds and jumped over the side.

Morning broke, but it brought no news of the sea beggar who had escaped.

On the deck of the Andrea Doria Leone della Rota walked backwards and forwards with arms folded and whispered to himself:

"If only he hadn't said it! He'll die and it'll be all my fault. Oh Antonio! Poor Antonio! He predicted this. Me as captain of the Andrea Doria, himself a corpse at the bottom of the sea."

The lieutenant stopped.

"And yet, Leone, will the same fate not befall you yourself perhaps soon, maybe even tomorrow? Who fears death? Death is annihilation. Long live life! Here comes the sun. I can breathe freely again and clouds of blood disappear from before my eyes! I want to toast the morning in the fiery wine of Syracuse, even should it prove to be the last morning I ever see!"

The cabin boy brought a full tumbler of the exquisite wine. Della Rota lifted it towards the blazing solar sphere, emptied it at a single swallow and flung the glass far away from him into the river, putting his foot firmly down on the planking of the deck.

"Captain on board the Andrea Doria," he said, and almost inaudibly, he added: "Captain of the Andrea Doria and Myga, the crown of all the maids of Flanders, mine, all mine!"

V. Fevered Dreams.

For the third time since the night in which the garrison of Fort Liefkenhoek perceived the exchange of cannon fire between the black galley and the Immaculate Conception and the explosion of that ship, evening fell, a still and unusually warm evening. People who knew about weather were of the opinion that there would be an ample fall of snow before too long and they may well have been right. After the early morning sun had risen brightly in a cloudless sky, it had around midday crept behind heavy grey clouds. These clouds had become more and more closely packed and in the evening had sunk more and more deeply over the town of Antwerp, over land, river and sea.

Once again we find ourselves on the Genoese ship, the Andrea Doria, in the captain's cabin.

The hanging lamp throws its ruddy light over the room, over the weapons therein, the maps on the wall, the floor on which bloody bedclothes lie strewn about, on the bed where Antonio Valani moans and rambles in a raging fever, on Myga van Bergen kneeling where the pillows are at the end of the bed, on lieutenant Leone della Rota who is standing next to where his friend is dying and wild, strange glances cast by the wounded man towards the forcibly taken maid.

At noon Leone della Rota had heard with equanimity from Admiral Spinola and the governor of Antwerp that the escape of the sea beggar was attributable to him. With somewhat less equanimity he had also received the news that, in the absence of someone more suitable, he was to be entrusted with the overall command of the Genoese galleon for the expedition of the following day.

Neither the governor nor the admiral had inquired after the presence of a young woman on board ship.

As he had had a lot of work to do both on board and on land, the day had flown by for Lieutenant della Rota and he had only been able to devote a small amount of time to his dying friend. But on board and on land, indeed everywhere, the young Genoan was pursued by the image of the beautiful Flemish damsel whom he was currently holding captive on his ship, who would be subject to his every whim, without the slightest vestige of protection, once his friend was dead. At first he sought to banish all such thoughts from his mind, but time and again they forced themselves upon him and there was no way that he could escape them and soon he gave up the struggle completely. The pretty child appeared to him in her desperation all the more charming. Among the sailors and men-at-arms, in the admiral's antechamber, in the streets of the town she appeared in his mind's eye as he saw her kneeling in a cabin of the Andrea Doria, wringing her hands. The wildest of passions broke out inside him in bright flames and he sought to overcome with the most convoluted sophistry the resistance of his conscience.

What earthly use would it be to Antonio if he, Leone, were to send this woman back to where she came from?

And now Leone recalled those moments during which he had held the young woman's delicate body in his arms, during which he had carried the unconscious girl through the gunsmoke and the streets. Then the wind had blown the damsel's fair hair into his face.

"No, no, no, Antonio Valani, your right to this fair booty ceases with your life! All's fair in love and war, Antonio Valani. Strike your colours and pass away. Then your luck will devolve on me and tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be defeated and someone else will have the victory. All's fair in love and war, my poor Antonio!"

With such thoughts in his head the lieutenant had walked into the cabin at twilight and now he stood, as we have shown him, between the dying man and Myga all of a tremble in the glimmer of the flickering ship's lantern.

The idea of carrying the wounded captain ashore had been mooted, but with all the strength of a life about to be extinguished Antonio Valani had expressly forbidden this. He wanted to die on board his ship and not in a hospital. He had not forgotten in his delirium that Leone had brought the Flemish maiden that he loved onto the Andrea Doria. The nearer he is to death, the more he clings to this love, the more violently it manifests itself. In life he might almost have concealed it had his turbulent companion Leone della Rota not meddled in it. As he lies dying, his brain casts off all restraint; Antonio Valani no longer hides anything of what he has formerly felt and kept a secret.

Poor Myga! See how she kneels there at the feet of the mortally wounded captain with her hair spread out, white as a ghost, wringing her hands! No salvation, none!

The waves of the Scheldt have swallowed up her betrothed, who was impotent to prevent the depraved corruption of his beloved and who had precipitated himself into the river's cold waters so as not to participate in her dishonour.