FOY SEES A VISION

Never since that day when, many years before, she had bought the safety of the man she loved by promising herself in marriage to his rival, had Lysbeth slept so ill as she did upon this night.  Montalvo was alive.  Montalvo was here, here to strike down and destroy those whom she loved, and triple armed with power, authority, and desire to do the deed.  Well she knew that when there was plunder to be won, he would not step aside or soften until it was in his hands.  Yet there was hope in this; he was not a cruel man, as she knew also, that is to say, he had no pleasure in inflicting suffering for its own sake; such methods he used only as a means to an end.  If he could get the money, all of it, she was sure that he would leave them alone.  Why should he not have it?  Why should all their lives be menaced because of this trust which had been thrust upon them?

Unable to endure the torments of her doubts and fears, Lysbeth woke her husband, who was sleeping peacefully at her side, and told him what was passing in her mind.

“It is a true saying,” answered Dirk with a smile, “that even the best of women are never quite honest when their interest pulls the other way.  What, wife, would you have us buy our own peace with Brant’s fortune, and thus break faith with a dead man and bring down his curse upon us?”

“The lives of men are more than gold, and Elsa would consent,” she answered sullenly; “already this pelf is stained with blood, the blood of Hendrik Brant himself, and of Hans the pilot.”

“Yes, wife, and since you mention it, with the blood of a good many Spaniards also, who tried to steal the stuff.  Let’s see; there must have been several drowned at the mouth of the river, and quite twenty went up with the Swallow, so the loss has not been all on our side.  Listen, Lysbeth, listen.  It was my cousin, Hendrik Brant’s, belief that in the end this great fortune of his would do some service to our people or our country, for he wrote as much in his will and repeated it to Foy.  I know not when or in what fashion this may come about; how can I know?  But first will I die before I hand it over to the Spaniard.  Moreover, I cannot, since its secret was never told to me.”

“Foy and Martin have it.”

“Lysbeth,” said Dirk sternly, “I charge you as you love me not to work upon them to betray their trust; no, not even to save my life or your own—­if we must die, let us die with honour.  Do you promise?”

“I promise,” she answered with dry lips, “but on this condition only, that you fly from Leyden with us all, to-night if maybe.”

“Good,” answered Dirk, “a halfpenny for a herring; you have made your promise, and I’ll give you mine; that’s fair, although I am old to seek a new home in England.  But it can’t be to-night, wife, for I must make arrangements.  There is a ship sailing to-day, and we might catch her to-morrow at the river’s mouth, after she has passed the officers, for her captain is a friend of mine.  How will that do?”