Chapter 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!"