“Thou art known to me, Signor Maso,” said Baptiste, hoarse with his impotent efforts to restrain the torrent, “and thou shalt answer for this, as well as for other of thy crimes, so soon as we reach the haven of Vevey!”

“Dotard! thou would’st carry thyself and all with thee, by thy narrowness of spirit, to a port from which, when it is once entered, none ever sail again.”

“It lieth between ye both,” rejoined Nicklaus Wagner; “thou art not less to blame than these madmen, Baptiste.  Hadst thou left the town at the hour named in our conditions, this danger could not have overtaken us.”

“Am I a god to command the winds!  I would that I had never seen thee or thy cheeses, or that thou wouldst relieve me of thy presence, and go after them into the lake.”

“This comes of sleeping on duty; nay, I know not but that a proper use of the oars would still bring us in, in safety, and without necessary harm to the property of any.  Noble Baron de Willading, here may be occasion for your testimony, and, as a citizen of Berne, I pray you to heed well the circumstances.”

Baptiste was not in a humor to bear these merited reproaches, and he rejoined upon the aggrieved Nicklaus in a manner that would speedily have brought their ill-timed wrangle to an issue, had not Maso passed rudely between them, shoving them asunder with the sinews of a giant.  This repulse served to keep the peace for the moment, but the wordy war continued with so much acrimony, and with so many unmeasured terms, that Adelheid and her maids, pale and terror-struck by the surrounding scene as they were, gladly shut their ears, to exclude epithets of such bitterness and menace that they curdled the blood.  Maso passed on among the workmen, when he had interposed between the disputants.  He gave his orders with perfect self-possession, though his understanding eye perceived that, instead of magnifying the danger, he had himself not fully anticipated its extent.  The rolling of the waves was now incessant, and the quick, washing rush of the water, a sound familiar to the seaman, announced that they had become so large that their summits broke, sending their lighter foam ahead.  There were symptoms, too, which proved that their situation was understood by those on the land.  Lights were flashing along the strand near Vevey, and it was not difficult to detect, even at the distance at which they lay, the evidences of a strong feeling among the people of the town.

“I doubt not that we have been seen,” said Melchior de Willading, “and that our friends are busy in devising means to aid us.  Roger de Blonay is not a man to see us perish without an effort, nor would the worthy bailiff, Peter Hofmeister, be idle, knowing that a brother of the buergerschaft, and old school associate, hath need of his assistance.”

“None can come to us, without running an equal risk with ourselves,” answered the Genoese.  “It were better that we should be left to our own exertions.  I like the coolness of this unknown mariner, and I put my faith in God!”