“Bah!” said Adrian.  “Take that horrid thing away.”

“Oh!  I beg your pardon,” answered Foy, shuffling the finger back into his pocket, “you don’t mind the dagger, do you?  No?  Well, then, mother, that mail shirt of yours is the best that was ever made; this knife broke on it like a carrot, though, by the way, it’s uncommonly sticky wear when you haven’t changed it for three days, and I shall be glad enough to get it off.”

“Evidently Foy has a story to tell,” said Adrian wearily, “and the sooner he rids his mind of it the sooner he will be able to wash.  I suggest, Foy, that you should begin at the beginning.”

So Foy began at the beginning, and his tale proved sufficiently moving to interest even the soul-worn Adrian.  Some portions of it he softened down, and some of it he suppressed for the sake of Elsa—­not very successfully, indeed, for Foy was no diplomatist, and her quick imagination filled the gaps.  Another part—­that which concerned her future and his own—­of necessity he omitted altogether.  He told them very briefly, however, of the flight from The Hague, of the sinking of the Government boat, of the run through the gale to the Haarlem Mere with the dead pilot on board and the Spanish ship behind, and of the secret midnight burying of the treasure.

“Where did you bury it?” asked Adrian.

“I have not the slightest idea,” said Foy.  “I believe there are about three hundred islets in that part of the Mere, and all I know is that we dug a hole in one of them and stuck it in.  However,” he went on in a burst of confidence, “we made a map of the place, that is—­” Here he broke off with a howl of pain, for an accident had happened.

While this narrative was proceeding, Martin, who was standing by him saying “Ja” and “Neen” at intervals, as Adrian foresaw he would, had unbuckled the great sword Silence, and in an abstracted manner was amusing himself by throwing it towards the ceiling hilt downwards, and as it fell catching it in his hand.  Now, most unaccountably, he looked the other way and missed his catch, with the result that the handle of the heavy weapon fell exactly upon Foy’s left foot and then clattered to the ground.

“You awkward beast!” roared Foy, “you have crushed my toes,” and he hopped towards a chair upon one leg.

“Your pardon, master,” said Martin.  “I know it was careless; my mother always told me that I was careless, but so was my father before me.”

Adrian, overcome by the fearful crash, closed his eyes and sighed.

“Look,” said Lysbeth in a fury, “he is fainting; I knew that would be the end of all your noise.  If you are not careful we shall have him breaking another vessel.  Go out of the room, all of you.  You can finish telling the story downstairs,” and she drove them before her as a farmer’s wife drives fowls.

“Martin,” said Foy on the stairs, where they found themselves together for a minute, for at the first signs of the storm Dirk had preceded them, “why did you drop that accursed great sword of yours upon my foot?”