Chapter IX: Book IV: I (3)

"To the chase! Long live the Beggar!" cry the soldiers and sailors. Très-Long's houlque, on which are Lamme and Ulenspiegel, and called Briele, followed closely by the Johannah, the Swan, and the Beggar, take four assabres. The Beggars fling everything Spanish into the sea, make the inhabitants of the Low Countries prisoners, empty the ships like eggshells, and leave them to float without masts or sails in the roadstead. Then they pursue the other eighteen. The wind blows violently; coming from Antwerp, the sides of the swift ships bend over in the water of the river beneath the weight of the sails swollen like a monk's cheeks in the wind that comes from kitchens; the assabres go swiftly; the Beggars pursue them into the very roadstead of Meddleburg under the fire from the forts. There a bloody battle joins: the Beggars carrying axes rush on the decks of the ships, soon strewn with lopped-off arms and legs, that have to be thrown into the waves after the combat ends. The forts fire on them: they take no heed, and to the shout of "Long live the Beggar!" take from out the assabres powder, artillery, bullets, and corn; burn the boats when they have emptied them; and make off to Flessingue, leaving them smoking and flaming in the roadsteads.

From there they will send squadrons to pierce the dykes of Zealand and Holland, to help in the construction of fresh ships, and notably of flyboats of one hundred and forty tons carrying up to twenty cannon of cast iron.

XII

On the ships it is snowing. The air is all white as far as eye can see, and the snow falls without ceasing, falls softly upon the black water where it melts.

On the earth it is snowing: all white are the roadways, all white the black silhouettes of the trees bereft of their leaves. No sound but the distant bells of Haarlem striking the hour, and the gay chime sending its muffled notes through the thick air.

Bells, ring not; bells, play not your sweet and simple airs: Don Frederic draws near, the dukeling of blood. He is marching upon thee, followed by thirty-five companies of Spaniards, thy mortal foes, Haarlem, O thou city of liberty; twenty-two companies of Walloons, eighteen companies of Germans, eight hundred horse, a powerful artillery, all follow in his train. Hearest thou the clang of this murderous iron on the wagons? Falconets, culverins, big-mouthed mortars, all that is for thee, Haarlem. Bells, ring not; chimes, fling not your gladsome notes into the air thickened with snow.

"Bells, we the bells, shall ring; I, the chime, I shall sing, flinging my bold notes into the air thick with snow. Haarlem is the town of hardy hearts, of brave women. Undaunted she sees, from her topmost towers, the black masses of the butchers undulating like troops of ants: Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and a hundred sea Beggars are within her walls. Their fleet is cruising in the lake."

"Let them come!" say the inhabitants; "we are but citizens, fishermen, sailors, and women.

"The son of the Duke of Alba wanteth, he declares, no other keys to come into our house than his cannon. Let him open, if he can, these weak gates; he will find men behind them. Ring out, bells; chimes, launch your glad notes into the air thick with snow.

"We have but weak walls and old-fashioned ditches. Fourteen guns belch out their balls of forty-six pound on the Cruys-poort. Put men where stones are lacking. Night comes, every man toileth, it is as though the cannon had never been there. On the Cruys-poort they have hurled six hundred and eighty shot; on St. John's Gate six hundred and seventy-five. These keys do not open, for there, behind, rises a new rampart. Ring out, bells; chimes, hurl into the thick air your merry notes.

"The cannon beat, beat, beat ever on the walls; the stones fly, the walls crumble. Wide enough is the breech to let a company pass in abreast. The assault! 'Kill! Kill!' they cry. They mount, they are ten thousand; suffer them to pass the moats with their bridges, with their ladders. Our cannon are ready. Lo, there the flag of those that are to die. Salute them, cannon of liberty! They salute: chain shot, balls of flaming tar flying and hissing, pierce, cut, kindle, blind the assailing masses that fall back and flee in disorder. Fifteen hundred dead lie in the ditch. Ring out, bells; and ye, chimes, fling into the thickened air your merry notes.

"Come back to the assault! They dare not. They fall to shooting and sapping. We, too, we know the arts of the mine. Beneath them, beneath them light the train; run, we shall see a goodly sight. Four hundred Spaniards blown into the air. This is not the road of eternal fires. Oh! the goodly dance to the silver sound of our bells, to the merry music of our chimes!

"They never suspect that the prince is watching over us; that every day there come to us by ways well guarded sledges of corn and gunpowder; the corn for us, the powder for them. Where are their six hundred Germans that we slew and drowned in the Haarlem Wood? Where are the eleven ensigns we have taken from them, the six pieces of artillery, and the fifty oxen? We had one girdle of walls; now we have two. Even the women fight, and Kennan leads their valiant band. Come, butchers, march down our streets; the children will hamstring you with their little knives. Ring out, bells; and ye, chimes, fling into the thickened air your merry notes!

"But fortune is not with us. The Beggars' fleet is beaten in the lake. They are beaten, the troops Orange had sent to our help. It freezes, it freezes bitterly. No more help now. Then for five months, a thousand against ten thousand, we hold out. Now we must needs come to terms with the butchers. Will he listen to any terms, this bloody dukeling who hath sworn our destruction? Let us send out all our soldiers with their arms: they will pierce the enemy bands. But the women are at the gates, fearing lest they be left to guard the town alone. Bells, ring out no more; chimes, fling no more into the air your merry notes.

"Here is June; the hay is fragrant, the corn grows golden in the sun, the birds are singing: we have been hungry for five months; the town is in mourning; we shall all go forth from Haarlem, the musketeers at the head to open up the way, the women, the children, the magistrates behind, guarded by the infantry that watches at the breech. A letter, a letter from the dukeling of blood! Is it death he announces? Nay, it is life to all that are in the town. O unlooked-for clemency; O lie, mayhap! Wilt thou still sing, O merry chime? They are entering the town."

Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele had donned the costume of the German soldiers shut up with them, to the number of six hundred, in the cloister of the Augustines.

"We shall die to-day," said Ulenspiegel in a low tone to Lamme.

And he clasped to his breast the dainty form of Nele all shivering with fear.

"Alas! my wife, I shall never see her more," said Lamme. "But perhaps our costume as German soldiers will save our lives?"

Ulenspiegel nodded his head to show he believed in no hope of grace.

"I hear no noise of pillage," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"By the terms, the townsfolk redeemed their lives, and the town from pillage, for the sum of two hundred and forty thousand florins. They must pay one hundred thousand florins down in twelve days, and the rest three months after. The women have been ordered to retire into the churches. They are about to begin the massacre, beyond a doubt. Dost thou hear them nailing up the scaffolds and erecting the gallows?"

"Ah! we are to die!" said Nele; "I am hungry."

"Aye," said Lamme low to Ulenspiegel, "the dukeling of blood has said that being famished we shall be more docile when we are brought out to die."

"I am so hungry!" said Nele.

That night soldiers came and distributed bread enough for six men.

"Three hundred Walloon soldiers have been hanged in the marketplace," said they. "It will soon be your turn. There was always a matrimony between the Beggars and the Gallows."

The next night they came again with their bread for six men.

"Four high burgesses," said they, "have been beheaded. Two hundred and forty-nine soldiers have been bound together two by two and cast into the sea. The crabs will be fat this year. You do not look well, you folk, since the seventh of July that saw you come here. They are gluttons and drunkards, these dwellers in the Low Countries; we Spaniards, we have enough with two figs for our supper."

"That is why, then," replied Ulenspiegel, "you must needs, everywhere in the townsfolks' houses, have four meals of meats, poultry, creams, wines, and preserves; that ye must have milk to wash the bodies of your mustachos and wine to bathe your horses' feet?"

On the eighteenth of July, Nele said:

"My feet are wet; what is this?"

"Blood," said Ulenspiegel.

At night the soldiers came again with their bread for six.

"Where the rope is no longer enough," said they, "the sword does the work. Three hundred soldiers and twenty-seven burghers who tried to flee out of the town are now walking about the streets of hell with their heads in their hands."

The next day the blood came again into the cloister; the soldiers came not to bring the bread, but merely to contemplate the prisoners, saying:

"The five hundred Walloons, Englishmen, and Scotsmen that were beheaded yesterday looked better. These are hungry, no doubt, but who then should die of hunger if not the Beggar!"

And indeed, they were like phantoms, all pale, haggard, broken, trembling with cold ague.

On the sixteenth of August, at five in the evening, the soldiers came in laughing and gave them bread, cheese, and beer. Lamme said:

"It is the feast of death."

At ten o'clock four companies came; the captains had the doors of the cloister opened, ordering the prisoners to march four abreast behind fifes and drums, to the place where they would be told to halt. Certain streets were red, and they marched towards the Gallows Field.

Here and there shallow pools of blood defiled the meadows; there was blood all about the walls. The ravens came in clouds on every hand; the sun hid in a bed of mists; the sky was still clear, and in its depths awoke the shy stars. Suddenly they heard lamentable howlings.

The soldiers said:

"They that are crying there are the Beggars of the Fuycke Fort, without the town; they are being left to die of hunger."

"We, too," said Nele, "we are going to die." And she wept.

"The ashes beat upon my heart," said Ulenspiegel.

"Ah!" said Lamme in Flemish--for the soldiers of the escort understood not that proud speech--"Ah!" said Lamme, "if I could catch that duke of blood and make him eat, until his skin burst, each and all ropes, gallows, torture benches, wooden horses, weights, and boots; if I could make him drink the blood he has shed, if there came out of his torn skin and opened bowels splinters of wood and pieces of iron, and still he did not give up the ghost, I would tear out his heart from his breast and make him eat it raw and poisoned. Then for certain would he fall from life to death into the sulphur pit, where may the devil make him eat it and eat it again without ceasing. And thus through all long eternity."

"Amen," said Ulenspiegel and Nele.

"But dost thou see naught?" said she.

"Nay," said he.

"I see in the west," she said, "five men and two women seated in a circle. One is clad in purple and wears a crown of gold. He seems the chief over the rest, all ragged and tattered. I see from the east another band of seven coming: one commands them also who is clad in purple, without a crown. And they come against those of the west. And they fight against them in the clouds, but I see nothing more now."

"The Seven," said Ulenspiegel.

"I hear," said Nele, "near by us in the foliage, a voice like a breath of wind saying:

"By war and fire
By pikes and swords
Seek;
In death and blood
Ruins and tears.
Find."

"Others than we shall deliver the land of Flanders," replied Ulenspiegel. "Night grows black, the soldiers are lighting torches. We are near the Gallows Field. O sweet beloved, why didst thou follow me? Dost thou hear nothing more, Nele?"

"Aye," said she, "a noise of arms among the corn. And there, above that ridge, surmounting the way in which we are entering, seest thou the red light of the torches gleam upon steel? I see sparks of fire gleaming upon the matches of arquebuses. Are our guardians asleep, or are they blind? Dost thou hear that clap of thunder? Seest thou the Spaniards fall pierced with bullets? Hearest thou 'Long live the Beggar!'? They climb the path running, musket in hand; they come down with axes all along the slope. Long live the Beggar!"

"Long live the Beggar!" cry Lamme and Ulenspiegel.

"Lo," said Nele, "here are soldiers that give us arms. Take, Lamme, take, my beloved. Long live the Beggar!"

"Long live the Beggar!" cry the whole troop of prisoners.

"The arquebuses cease not from firing," said Nele, "they fall like flies, lit up as they are by the light of the torches. Long live the Beggars!"

"Long live the Beggar!" cry the band of rescuers.

"Long live the Beggar!" cry Ulenspiegel and the prisoners. "The Spaniards are in a ring of fire. Kill! kill! There is not one left on his feet. Kill! no pity, war without mercy. And now let us be off and run to Enckhuyse. Who hath the butchers' clothes of cloth and silk? Who hath their weapons?"

"All! all!" they cry. "Long live the Beggar!"

And indeed, they went off for Enckhuyse by boat, and there the Germans delivered with them remained to guard the town.

And Lamme, Nele, and Ulenspiegel found their ships again. And lo once more they are singing upon the free sea: "Long live the Beggar!"

And they cruise in the roadstead of Flessingue.

XIII

There once again was Lamme joyous. He was always ready to go on shore, hunting oxen, sheep, and fowl like hares, stags, and ortolans.

And he was not alone in this nourishing hunting. Good was it then to see the huntsmen return, Lamme at their head, dragging the big beasts by the horns, driving the small cattle before them, directing flocks of geese with long wands, and carrying slung from their boathooks hens, pullets, and capons in spite of their struggling.

Then it was revel and feasting on the ships. And Lamme would say: "The fragrance of the sauces mounts up to the very sky, there delighting their worships the angels, which say: ''Tis the best part of the meat'."

While they were cruising there came a fleet of merchantmen from Lisbon, whose commander knew not that Flessingue had fallen into the hands of the Beggars. It is ordered to cast anchor; it is hemmed round. Long live the Beggar! Drums and fifes sound the signal for boarding; the merchants have guns, pikes, hatchets, arquebuses.

Musket balls and cannon balls rain from the ships of the Beggars. Their musketeers, entrenched round about the main mast in their wooden forts, fire with deadly aim, without any danger. The merchants fall like flies.

"To the rescue!" said Ulenspiegel to Lamme and to Nele, "to the rescue! Here be spices, knicknacks, precious dainties, sugar, nutmegs, cloves, ginger, reals, ducats, moutons d'or all bright and shining. There are more than five hundred thousand pieces in coin. The Spaniard will pay the cost of the war. Drink ho! Let us sing the Beggars' Mass, which is battle!"

And Ulenspiegel and Lamme rushed everywhere like lions. Nele played the fife, sheltered in the wooden castle. The whole of the fleet was taken.

The dead were counted and these were a thousand on the side of the Spaniards, three hundred on the side of the Beggars: among them was the master cook of the fly boat La Briele.

Ulenspiegel asked to be allowed to speak before Très-Long and the sailors: this Très-Long granted with a good will. And he said to them as follows:

"Master captain and ye comrades, we have but now inherited much spices, and here is Lamme, the good belly, who findeth that the poor dead man there, God have him in joy, was in no wise a doctor great enough in fricassees. Let us name him in the place of the dead. And he will prepare you divine stews and paradisaic soups."

"We will," said Très-Long and the others; "Lamme shall be the master cook of the ship. He shall bear the great wooden ladle to skim the froth off his sauces."

"Messire Captain, comrades and friends," said Lamme, "ye behold me weeping with joy, for I deserve not so great honour. Nevertheless, since ye deign to call upon my worthlessness, I accept the noble functions of master of arts in fricassees upon the stout fly boat La Briele, but with a humble prayer to you that ye invest me with the supreme command of the kitchen work, in such fashion that your master cook--the which will be myself--may by right law and might be empowered to prevent anyonesoever from coming and eating another's share."

Très-Long and the others cried out:

"Long live Lamme! thou shalt have right, law, and might."

"But," said he, "I have another prayer to make before you in all humility: I am a fat man, big and strong; deep is my paunch, deep my stomach; my poor wife--may God restore her to me--always gave me two portions instead of one: accord me this same favour."

Très-Long, Ulenspiegel, and the sailors said:

"Thou shalt have the two portions, Lamme."

And Lamme, suddenly fallen melancholy, said:

"My wife, my sweet darling! if anything can console me for thy absence, it will be to bring again to mind in my duties thy heavenly cooking in our sweet home."

"You must take the oath, my son," said Ulenspiegel. "Let the great wooden ladle and the great copper caldron be brought hither."

"I swear," quoth Lamme, "by God, may he be here my helper, I swear fidelity to Monseigneur the Prince of Orange, called the Silent, governing the provinces of Holland and Zealand for the king; fidelity to Messire de Lumey, the admiral commanding our gallant fleet, and to Messire Très-Long, vice-admiral and captain of the good ship La Briele; I swear to dress at my poor best, according to the use and wont of the great cooks of old, which have left behind them noble books with cuts upon the great art of cookery, what flesh and fowl Fortune shall accord to us; I swear to feed the said Messire Très-Long, our captain, his second in command, which is my friend, Ulenspiegel, and all you, master mariner, pilot, boatswain, companions, soldiers, gunners, captain's page, chirurgeon, trumpeteer, sailors, and all others. If the roast is too underdone, the fowl unbrowned; if the soup sends up an insipid fragrance, inimical to all good digestion; if the steam of the sauces doth not entice you all to rush into the kitchen--always with my good will; if I make you not all sprightly and well favoured, I will resign my noble functions, judging myself unfit longer to occupy the throne of the kitchen. So may God help me in this life and in the next."

"Long live the master cook," said they, "the king of the kitchen, the emperor of fricassees. He shall have three portions instead of two on Sundays."

And Lamme became master cook of the ship La Briele. And while the succulent soups were simmering in the saucepans, he stood at the door of the galley, proudly holding his great wooden ladle like a sceptre.

And he had his treble rations on Sundays.

When the Beggars came to grips with the enemy, he would stay preferably in his sauce laboratory but would come out every now and then to run up on the deck and fire a few rounds. Then he would hurry down again at once to keep an eye to his sauces.

Thus being trusty cook and valiant soldier, he was well beloved of all.

But no one must penetrate the sanctuary of his galley. For then he was even like a devil and with his wooden ladle he smote them pitilessly hip and thigh.

And thenceforth he was called Lamme the Lion.

XIV

On the ocean, on the Scheldt, in sunshine, in rain, in snow, in hail, winter and summer, glided the ships of the Beggars to and fro.

All sails out like mantling swans, swans of white freedom.

White for freedom, blue for great heart, orange for the prince, 'tis the standard of the proud ships.

All sails set! all sails set, the stout ships; the billows beat upon them, the waves besprinkle them with foam.

They pass, they run, they fly along the river, their sails in the water, swift as clouds in the north wind, the proud ships of the Beggars. Hear you their prows cleaving the wave? God of freemen! Long live the Beggar!

Hulks, flyboats, boyers, croustèves, swift as a wind big with tempest, like the cloud that bears the thunderbolt. Long live the Beggar!

Boyers and croustèves, flat-bottomed boats, slide along the river. The waters groan as they are cloven through, when the ships go straight on face forwards with the deadly mouth of their long culverin on the point of the bows. Long live the Beggar!

All sail out! all sail out, the gallant ships, the waves toss them, sprinkle them with foam.

Night and day, through rain, hail, and snow, they go on their way! Christ smileth on them in cloud, in sun, in starshine. Long live the Beggar.

XV

The king of blood learned the news of their victories. Death was already gnawing at the murderer and his body was full of worms. He would walk about the corridors of Valladolid, sullen and savage, dragging heavily his swollen feet and leaden legs. He never sang, the cruel tyrant; when the day came, he never laughed, and when the sun lighted up his empire like a smile from God he felt no joy in his heart.

But Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele sang like birds, risking their hide, that is to say Lamme and Ulenspiegel, their white skin, to wit Nele, living from day to day, and finding more joy in one death fire quenched by the Beggars than the dark king had in the burning of a town.

At this time, too, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, broke from his rank as admiral Messire de Lumey de la Marck, by reason of his great cruelties. He appointed Messire Bouwen Ewoutsen Worst in his stead. He took measures also to pay for the grain taken by the Beggars from the peasants, to restore the forced contributions levied upon them, and to grant the Roman Catholics, like all others, the free exercise of their religion, without either persecution or insult.

XVI

On the ships of the Beggars, under the dazzling sky, over the shining waves, squealed the fifes; droned bagpipes, gurgled flasks, chimed glasses, and shone the steel of weapons and armour.

"Ho!" said Ulenspiegel, "let us beat the drum of glory, let us beat the drum of joy. Long live the Beggar! Spain is conquered; the ghoul is beaten down. Ours is the sea, Briele is taken. Ours the coast as far as Nieuport, beyond Ostende and Blanckenberghe, the islands of Zealand, the mouths of the Scheldt, the mouths of the Meuse, the Rhine mouths as far as Helder. Ours are Texel, Vlieland, Ter-Schelling, Ameland, Rottum, Borkum. Long live the Beggar!

"Ours are Delft, and Dordrecht. 'Tis a trail of powder. God holdeth the linstock. The murderers abandon Rotterdam. Free conscience, like a lion with teeth and claws of justice, seizes the county of Zutphen, the towns of Deutecom, Doesburg, Goor, Oldenzeel, and on the Welnuire, Hattem, Elburg, and Harderwyck. Long live the Beggar!

"'Tis lightning, 'tis a thunder bolt: Campen, Zwol, Hassel, Sheenwyck fall into our hands with Oudewater, Gouda, Leyden. Long live the Beggar!

"Ours are Bueren, Enckhuyse! Not yet have we Amsterdam, Schoonhoven, or Middelburg. But all cometh in time to patient blades. Long live the Beggar!

"Drink we the wine of Spain. Drink from the chalices whence they drank the blood of the victims. We shall go by way of the Zuyderzee, by rivers, streams, canals; we have North Holland, South Holland, and Zealand; we shall take East and West Frisia; La Briele shall be the refuge for our ships, the nest of the hens that hatch out liberty. Long live the Beggar!

"Hearken in Flanders, our beloved land, how there bursts forth the cry of avenging. Armour is polishing, the swords are a-whetting. All are astir, athrill like the strings of a harp in the warm breeze, the breath souls that cometh from grave pits, from torture fires, from the bleeding corpses of the victims. All, Hainaut, Brabant, Luxembourg, Namur, Liége the free city, all! Blood sprouts and springs up. The harvest is ripe for the sickle. Long live the Beggar.

"Ours the Noord-Zee, the wide North Sea. Ours are good guns, proud ships, the bold band of redoubted seamen: rogues, robbers, soldier-priests, gentlemen, townsfolk, and artisans fleeing persecution. Ours to all of us joined together for the work of freedom! Long live the Beggar!

"Philip, king of blood, where art thou? D'Alba, where art thou? Thou dost cry out and curse and blaspheme, thou with the holy hat, the Holy Father's gift. Beat the drums of joy. Long live the Beggar! Drink all!

"The wine flows into the golden cups. Drain it with glee. Priestly robes on the backs of rough men are flooded with the red liquor; banners, ecclesiastic and Roman, wave in the wind. Eternal music! To you, fifes squealing, bagpipes droning, drums beating, peals of glory. Long live the Beggar!"

XVII

The world was then in the wolf month, which is the month of December. A thin sharp rain was falling like needles upon the sea. The Beggars were cruising in the Zuyderzee. Messire the Admiral summoned by trumpet the captains of houlques and flyboats on board his ship, and with them Ulenspiegel.

"Now," said the Admiral, addressing himself first of all to Ulenspiegel, "the Prince is minded to recognize thy good devoirs and trusty services, and names thee as captain of the ship La Briele. Herewith I hand thee the commission engrossed upon parchment."

"All thanks to you, Messire Admiral," replied Ulenspiegel: "I shall be captain with all my little power, and thus captaining I have great hope, if God help me, to uncaptain Spain from the lands of Flanders and Holland: I mean from the Zuid and the Noord-Neerlande."

"That is well," said the admiral. "And now," he added, speaking to them all, "I will tell you that the folk of Catholic Amsterdam are going to besiege Enckhuyse. They have not yet come out from the Y canal; let us cruise about in front that they may stay inside there and fall on each and all of their ships that may show their tyrannical carcases in the Zuyderzee."

They made answer:

"We will knock holes in them. Long live the Beggar!"

Ulenspiegel, returned to his ship, called his soldiers and his sailors together on the deck, and told them what the admiral had decided.

They replied:

"We have wings, the which are our sails; skates, which are the keels of our ships; and giant hands, which are the grapples for boarding. Long live the Beggar!"

The fleet set forth and cruised in front of Amsterdam a sea league away, in such a sort that none could enter or come out against their will.

On the fifth day the rain ceased; the wind blew sharper in the clear sky; the Amsterdam folk made no stir.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel saw Lamme come up on deck, driving before him with great blows of his wooden ladle the ship's truxman, a young man skilful in the French and Flemish tongues, but more skilful still in the science of the teeth.

"Good-for-naught," said Lamme, beating him, "didst thou deem thou couldst scatheless eat my fricassees before their due time? Go up to the masthead and see if aught budges on the ships of Amsterdam. Doing this thou wilt do well."

But the truxman answered:

"What will you give me?"

"Dost thou think," said Lamme, "to be paid without doing the work? Thieves' spawn, if thou dost not climb, I shall have thee flogged. And thy French shall not save thee."

"'Tis a beauteous tongue," said the truxman, "a tongue for love and war."

And he climbed the mast.

"Well! lazybones?" asked Lamme.

The truxman answered:

"I see naught in the town nor on the ships." And descending:

"Now pay me," said he.

"Keep what thou hast stolen," replied Lamme; "but such gains are no profit; thou wilt doubtless vomit it up."

The truxman, climbing again to the masthead, cried out suddenly:

"Lamme! Lamme! there is a thief going into the galley."

"I have the key in my pouch," rejoined Lamme.

Ulenspiegel then, taking Lamme apart, said to him:

"My son, this great tranquillity of Amsterdam affrights me. They have some hidden project."

"I thought of that," said Lamme. "The water is freezing in the jugs in the cupboard; the fowl are like wood; hoar frost whitens the sausages; the butter is a stone, the oil is all white, the salt is dry as sand in the sun."

"'Tis a frost at hand," said Ulenspiegel. "They will come in great numbers to attack us with artillery."

Going on board the admiral's ship, he told his fear to the admiral, who answered him:

"The wind blows from England: there will be snow, but it will not freeze: go back to your ship."

And Ulenspiegel went away.

That night heavy snow fell; but soon, the wind blowing out of Norway, the sea froze and was like a floor. The admiral beheld the sight.

Then fearing lest the Amsterdam folk might come over the ice to burn the ships, he bade the soldiers make ready their skates, in case they might have to fight around and away from the ships, and the gunners of the iron guns and the brass to pile up heaps of cannon-balls by the gun carriages, to load the pieces, and to keep the portfires always well lighted.

But the Amsterdam folk never came.

And so it was for seven days.

Towards evening on the eighth day Ulenspiegel gave orders that a good feast should be served to the sailors and men at arms, to make them a cuirass against the sharp wind that was blowing.

But Lamme said:

"There is nothing at all left now but biscuit and small beer."

"Long live the Beggar!" said they. "'Twill be Lenten revelry until the hour of battle."

"Which will not strike soon," said Lamme. "The Amsterdammers will come to burn us our ships, but not on this night. First they must needs assemble themselves together around fires, and there drink many a measure of wine mulled with Madeira sugar--may God give us thereof--then having talked till midnight with patience, logic, and full stoups, they will decide that there are grounds for coming to a decision to-morrow as to whether they shall attack or not attack next week. To-morrow, again drinking wine mulled with Madeira sugar--may God give you thereof--they will decide anew with calm, patience, and full stoups, that they must assemble together another day, to the end that they may know if the ice can or cannot bear a great band of men. And they will have it proved and essayed by men of learning, who will lay down their conclusions upon parchment. Having received which, they will know that the ice is half an ell in thickness, and that it is solid enough to bear some hundreds of men with field guns and artillery. Then assembling themselves together once more to deliberate with calm, patience, and many stoups of mulled wine, they will debate whether, by reason of the treasure seized by us from the men of Lisbon, it is more suitable to assault or to burn our ships. And being thus perplexed, but temporizers, they will none the less decide that they must capture and not burn our ships, notwithstanding the great wrong and hurt they would do us by that."

"You say well," replied Ulenspiegel; "but see you not those fires kindle up within the town, and folk bearing lanterns running busily about there?"

"'Tis because they are cold," said Lamme.

And he added, sighing:

"Everything is eaten. No more beef, pork, nor poultry; no more wine, alas! nor good dobbel-bier, nothing but biscuit and small beer. Let who loves me follow me!"

"Whither goest thou?" said Ulenspiegel. "No man may go from the ship."

"My son," said Lamme, "thou art captain and master as now. I will never go from the ship if thou dost forbid it. Yet deign to consider that we ate the last of our sausage on the day before yesterday: and that in this stern weather the fire of the kitchen is the sun of good companions. Who would not fain smell here the odour of sauces; sniff up the fragrant bouquet of the divine drink made of those joyous blossoms that are gaiety, laughter, and good will to every man? And so, captain and trusty friend, I dare say this: I devour my very soul, since I eat naught, I who, though loving but repose, never slaying by my will, save it were a tender goose, a fat chicken, a succulent turkey, follow thee amid fatigue and battles. See from here the lights in that rich farm well furnished of big and little cattle. Knowest thou who it is that dwelleth there? It is the boatman of Frisia, that betrayed Messire Dandelot and furthermore brought to Enckhuyse, while it was still in D'Alba's hand, eighteen poor lords our friends, the which, of his doing, were beheaded on the Horse Market at Brussels. This traitor, who hath to name Slosse, got from the duke two thousand florins for his treachery. With the price of that blood, a very Judas, he purchased the farm thou seest there, and his great cattle and the fields around about, which bearing fruit and increasing, I mean land and herds, make him rich as now."

Ulenspiegel replied:

"The ashes beat upon my heart. Thou makest the hour of God to strike."

"And," said Lamme, "the hour of food in like wise. Give me twenty lads, valiant soldiers and sailors; I will go and seek out the traitor."

"I will be their leader," said Ulenspiegel. "Who loves justice let him follow me. Not all of you, dear friends and trusty; there must be twenty only, else who would keep the ship? Draw lots by the dice. Ye are twenty, come. The dice speak well. Put your skates on your feet and glide towards the star of Venus burning bright above the treachour's farm.

"Guiding yourselves by the clear beam, come, ye twenty, skating and sliding, axe on shoulder.

"The wind whistles and drives white whirls of snow before it on the ice. Come, brave men!

"Ye sing not, nor speak; ye go straight on, in silence, towards the star; your skates make the ice complain.

"He that falls picks himself up at once. We touch the shore; no human shape on the white snow, not a bird in the icy air. Take off the skates from your feet.

"Here we are on land; here are the meadows; put on your skates again. We are round about the farm, holding our breath."

Ulenspiegel knocks on the door; dogs bark. He knocks again, a window opens and the baes says, sticking out his head:

"Who art thou?"

He sees but Ulenspiegel only: the others are concealed behind the keet, which is the washhouse.

Ulenspiegel makes answer:

"Messire de Boussu bids thee betake thee to him at Amsterdam upon the instant."

"Where is thy safe-conduct?" said the man, coming down and opening the door to him.

"Here," replied Ulenspiegel, showing him the twenty Beggars who hurl themselves behind him into the opening.

Ulenspiegel then says to him:

"Thou art Slosse, the traitor boatman that brought into an ambuscade Messires Dandelot, de Battenberg, and other lords. Where is the price of their blood?"

The farmer replies, trembling:

"Ye are the Beggars; grant me a pardon; I knew not what I did. I have no money here within; I will give all I have."

Lamme said:

"It is black dark; give us candles of tallow or of wax."

The baes replies:

"The tallow candles are hanging there."

A candle being lit, said one of the Beggars, in the hearthplace:

"It is cold; let us kindle a fire. Here are proper faggots."

And he pointed out upon a shelf flower pots in which withered and dried plants might be seen.

He took one by the stalk and shaking it with the pot, the pot fell, scattering over the ground ducats, florins, and reals.

"There is the treasure," said he, pointing to the other flower pots.

In very deed, having emptied them, they found ten thousand florins.

Seeing which, the baes cried out and wept.

The farm servants, both men and maids, came to the cries, in shirts and smocks. The men wishing to avenge their master, were bound. Soon the shamefaced women, and especially the younger, hid behind the men.

Then Lamme went forward and said:

"Traitor farmer, where are the keys of the cellar, the stables, the cowshed, and the sheep-pens?"

"Infamous pillagers," said the baes, "ye shall be hanged until ye are dead."

Ulenspiegel replied:

"It is the hour of God; give up the keys!"

"God will avenge me," said the baes, handing them over to him.

Having emptied the farm, the Beggars departed skating towards the ships, those light dwelling places of freedom.

"Master cook am I," said Lamme, guiding them; "Master cook am I. Push along the gallant sledges laden with wines and beer; drive on before you, by their horns, or by anything, horses, oxen, swine, sheep, and flocks singing their native songs. The pigeons coo in the baskets; the capons, stuffed with crumb, are astonied in their wooden cages wherein they cannot budge. I am master cook. The ice cries out beneath the steel of the skates. We are at the ships. To-morrow there will be kitchen music. Let down the pulleys; put girths on the horses, cows, and oxen. 'Tis a noble sight to see them thus pendent by their bellies; to-morrow we shall be hanging by the tongue to fat fricassees. The crane hoists them up into the ship. These be carbonadoes. Throw me them pell mell into the hold, hens, geese, ducks, capons. Who will wring their necks? The master cook. The door is locked, I have the key in my satchel. Praised be God in the kitchen! Long live the Beggar!"

Then Ulenspiegel went on board the admiral's ship taking with him Dierick Slosse and the other prisoners, moaning and weeping for terror of the rope.

Messire Worst came at the noise: perceiving Ulenspiegel--his companions lit up by the red glare of the torches:

"What would you of us?" said he.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"This night we took, in his farm, the traitor Dierick Slosse, that brought the eighteen into an ambuscade. This is the man. The others are innocent menservants and maidservants. Then handing him a satchel:

"These florins," said he, "were flourishing in flower pots in the traitor's house: there are ten thousand."

Messire Worst said to them:

"Ye did ill to leave your ship; but because of your good success pardon shall be granted to you. Welcome be the prisoners and the satchel of florins, and ye, gallant men, to whom I assign, after the laws and customs of the sea, a third of the prize: the second will be for the fleet, and another third for Monseigneur d'Orange; string me up the traitor incontinent."

The Beggars having obeyed, they opened afterward a hole in the ice and threw the body of Dierick Slosse into it.

Messire Worst then said:

"Has grass sprung up around the ships that I hear hens cackling, sheep bleating, cows and oxen lowing?"

"These are the prisoners of our teeth," answered Ulenspiegel; "they will pay ransom of fricassees. Messire Admiral shall have the choicest."

"As for these folk, the knaves and the maidservants, among whom are sprightly and pretty women, I will fetch them back aboard my ship."

Having done so, he addressed them as follows:

"Goodfellows and goodwives, ye are here upon the best ship in the world. Here we pass our time in jollity, feast, and revel without end. If it please you to depart herefrom, pay ransom; if it please you to stay here, ye shall live like us, toiling hard and eating well. As for these dear women, I accord them, with the admiral's sanction, full freedom of their persons, giving them to know that it is all one to me whether they are fain to keep to their lovers that came upon the ship with them or to make their choice of some stout Beggar here present in order to bear him conjugal company."

But the fair women were all faithful to their lovers, save only one, who, smiling and looking upon Lamme, asked him if he would have her.

"All thanks, dear one," said he, "but I am otherwise bound."

"He is married, poor fellow," said the Beggars, seeing the girl vexed.

But she, turning her back on Lamme, chose another who like him had a good round belly and a good round face.

That day and the following days there were great revels and feastings on board with wines, fowl, and meats. And Ulenspiegel said:

"Long live the Beggar! Blow, sharp wintry winds, we will warm the air with our hot breath. Our heart is afire for freedom of conscience; our stomachs on fire for the enemy's meats. Drink we wine, the milk of men. Long live the Beggar!"

Nele, too, drank from a great golden tankard, and ruddy in the breath of the wind, played the shrill fife. And for all the cold, the Beggars ate and drank rejoicing on the deck.

XVIII

Suddenly the whole fleet perceived upon the bank a black troop among which torches shone and the gleaming of arms; then the torches were put out, and a great darkness reigned.

The admiral's orders being sent round, the alarm was given on the ships, and all fires were quenched; sailors and soldiers lay flat on the decks, armed with axes. The gallant gunners, linstock in hand, watched by the guns loaded with bags of bullets and with chain shot. As soon as the admiral and the captains should call out "A hundred paces!"--which denoted the enemy's distance, they were to fire from the bows, the poop, or the broadside, according to their position in the ice.

And Messire Worst's voice was heard saying:

"Death to whoever speaks aloud!"

And the captains said after him:

"Death to whoever speaks aloud!"

The night was moonless, filled with stars.

"Dost thou hear?" said Ulenspiegel to Lamme, in a voice like a whispering ghost. "Hearest thou the voices of the Amsterdammers, and the steel of their skates ringing over the ice? They come swiftly. We can hear them speak. They are saying 'The lazy Beggars are asleep. Ours is the Lisbon treasure!' They are lighting torches. Seest thou their ladders for the assault, their ugly faces, and the long line of their band deployed for the attack? There are a thousand of them, and more."

"A hundred paces!" cried Messire Worst.

"A hundred paces!" cried the captains all.

And there was a great noise like thunder, and lamentable outcries upon the ice.

"Eighty guns are thundering all together!" said Ulenspiegel. "They are fleeing! Seest thou the torches vanishing away?"

"Pursue them!" said Admiral Worst.

"Pursue them!" said the captains.

But the pursuit did not last long, the fugitives having a start of a hundred paces, and the legs of frightened hares.

And on the men that were crying out and dying on the ice were found gold, jewels, and ropes for the Beggars.

And after this victory the Beggars said one to another: "Als God met ons is, wie tegen ons zal zijn. If God is with us, who shall be against us? Long live the Beggar!"

Now on the morning of the third day thereafter Messire Worst was uneasy, and looked for a fresh attack. Lamme leaped upon the deck and said to Ulenspiegel:

"Fetch me to this admiral that would not listen to you when you prophesied a frost."

"Go without any fetching you?" said Ulenspiegel.

Lamme departed, first locking the door of his galley. The admiral was on deck, straining his eyes to see if he did not perceive some movement from the city.

Lamme came up to him.

"Monseigneur Admiral," said he, "may a humble master cook give you a rede?"

"Speak, my son," said the admiral.

"Monseigneur," said Lamme, "the water is thawing in the jugs; the fowl grow soft again; the sausage is laying aside its mildew of hoar frost; the butter becomes unctuous, the oil liquid; the salt is weeping. It will rain before long, and we shall be saved, Monseigneur."

"Who art thou?" asked Messire Worst.

"I am Lamme Goedzak," he replied, "the master cook of the ship La Briele. And if all those great savants that boast themselves astronomers read in the stars as true as I read in my sauces, they could tell us that to-night there will be a thaw with a great hubbub of storm and hail: but the thaw will not last."

And Lamme went back to Ulenspiegel, to whom he said, towards noon:

"I am a prophet already; the sky grows black, the wind breathes stormily: a warm rain is falling; already there is a foot of water upon the ice."

At night he cried, rejoicing:

"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 ships; 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 ship 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 God."

And Ulenspiegel said:

"Drink we to Him, and blessings on Him."

And the winter passed, and summer came.

XIX

In mid-August, when hens, fed full with grain, remain deaf to the call of the cock 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 God 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 God'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 Flushing, where Nele caught fever. Forced to leave the ship, 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 twangs 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:

"We have our orders to drop down the Scheldt with our ships as far as Antwerp, to find there the enemy ships to take or burn. As for the men, no quarter. What thinkest thou of this, big paunch?"

"Alas!" said Lamme, "shall we never hear aught else in this distressful land save burnings, hangings, drownings, and other ways of exterminating poor men? When then will blessed peace come, that we can in quiet roast partridges, fricassee chickens, and make the puddings sing in the pan among the eggs? I like the black ones best; the white are too rich."

"This sweet time will come," replied Ulenspiegel, "when in the orchards of Flanders we see on apple, plum, pear trees and cherry trees, a Spaniard hanged on every bough."

"Ah!" said Lamme, "if only I could find my wife again, my so dear, so sweet, beloved soft darling faithful wife! For know it well, my son, cuckold I was not nor shall ever be; she was too sober and calm in her ways for that; she eschewed the company of other men; if she loved fair and fine array, it was but for woman's need. I was her cook, her kitchenman, her scullion, I am glad to say it, why am I it not once more? but I was her master as well and her husband."

"Let us end this talk," said Ulenspiegel. "Hearest thou the admiral calling: 'Up anchors!' and captains after him calling the same? We must needs weigh soon."

"Why dost thou go so quickly?" said Nele to Ulenspiegel.

"We are going to the ships," said he.

"Without me?" she said.

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel.

"Dost thou not think," said she, "how lying here I shall be distressed for thee?"

"Dearest," said Ulenspiegel, "my skin is made of iron."

"Thou art mocking," said she. "I see nothing on thee but thy doublet, which is cloth, not iron; beneath it is thy body, made of bone and flesh, like my own. If they wound thee, who will heal thee? Art thou to die all alone in the midst of the fighters? I shall go with thee."

"Alas!" said he, "if the lances, balls, swords, axes, maces, sparing me, fall on thy dear body, what shall I do--I, good for naught without thee in this vile world?"

But Nele said:

"I would fain follow thee; there will be no peril; I will hide in the wooden forts where the arquebusiers are."

"If thou dost go, I stay, and they will hold thy friend Ulenspiegel traitor and coward; but listen to my lay:

"My hair is steel, as casque set there;
An armour forged by Nature's hand
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.

"In vain to catch me in his snare
Death, grinning monster, takes his stand;
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.

"My standards 'Live' as motto bear,
Live ever in a sunshine land:
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear."

And he went off singing, not without having kissed the shaking mouth and the lovely eyes of Nele sunk in fever, smiling and weeping all together.