Volume Ii Part 60 (1/2)
”The North Sea is swollen: 'tis the hour of the flood tide; the high waves rolling into the Zuyderzee break up the ice, which splinters in great fragments and leaps up on the s.h.i.+ps; it flashes sparkles of light; here comes the hail. The admiral bids us to withdraw from before Amsterdam, and that with as much water as our greatest s.h.i.+p can draw. Here we are in the harbour of Enckhuyse. The sea is freezing afresh. I am a fine prophet, and it is a miracle from G.o.d.”
And Ulenspiegel said:
”Drink we to Him, and blessings on Him.”
And the winter pa.s.sed, and summer came.
XIX
In mid-August, when hens, fed full with grain, remain deaf to the call of the c.o.c.k trumpeting his loves, Ulenspiegel said to his sailors and soldiers:
”The duke of blood, being at Utrecht, dares there to issue a blessed edict, promising among other gracious gifts, hunger, death, ruin to the inhabitants of the Low Countries who might be unwilling to submit. Everything that still remains whole, saith he, shall be exterminate, and His Majesty the king will people the country with strangers. Bite, duke, bite! The file breaketh the viper's tooth; we are files. Long live the Beggar!
”Alba, blood maketh thee drunk! Deemest thou that we would fear thy threats or believe in thy clemency? Thy famous regiments whose praises thou didst sing throughout the whole world, thy Invincibles, thy Tels Quels, thy Immortals, remained seven months bombarding Haarlem, a feeble city defended by mere citizens; like mortal common men they danced in air the dance of the bursting mines. Mere citizens besmeared them with tar; in the end they were glorious victors, slaughtering the disarmed. Hearest thou, murderer, the hour of G.o.d that striketh now?
”Haarlem hath lost her splendid defenders, her stones sweat blood. She hath lost and expended in her siege twelve hundred and eighty thousand florins. The bishop is reinstated there; with light hand and joyful countenance he blesses the churches; Don Frederick is present at these consecrations; the bishop washes for him those hands that in G.o.d's eyes are red and he communicates in two kinds, which is not permitted to the poor common herd. And the bells ring out and the chime flings into the air its calm, harmonious notes; it is like the singing of angels over a cemetery. An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! Long live the Beggar!”
XX
The Beggars were then at Flus.h.i.+ng, where Nele caught fever. Forced to leave the s.h.i.+p, she was lodged at the house of one Peeters, of the Reformed faith, at Turven-Key.
Ulenspiegel, deeply grieving, was yet rejoiced, thinking that in this bed where she would doubtless be healed the Spanish bullets could not reach her.
And with Lamme he was always beside her, tending her well and loving her better. And there they used to talk together.
”Friend and true comrade,” said Ulenspiegel one day, ”dost thou not know the news?”
”Nay, my son,” said Lamme.
”Seest thou the flyboat that but late came to join our fleet, and knowest thou who it is upon it that tw.a.n.gs the viol every day?”
”Through the late colds,” said Lamme, ”I am as one deaf in both ears. Why dost thou laugh, my son?”
But Ulenspiegel, continuing:
”Once,” he said, ”I heard her sing a Flemish lied and found her voice was sweet.”
”Alas,” said Lamme, ”she, too, sang and played upon the viol.”
”Dost thou know the other news?” went on Ulenspiegel.
”I know naught of it, my son,” said Lamme.
Ulenspiegel made answer: