Martin shut the door and lit three lanterns, which he hung to hooks upon the wall.

“Are you ready for a turn, master?” he asked.

Foy nodded as he answered, “I want to get the taste of it all out of my mouth, so don’t spare me.  Lay on till I get angry, it will make me forget,” and taking a leathern jerkin off a peg he pulled it over his head.

“Forget what, master?”

“Oh! the prayings and the burnings and Vrouw Jansen, and Adrian’s sea-lawyer sort of talk.”

“Ah, yes, that’s the worst of them all for us,” and the big man leapt forward and whispered.  “Keep an eye on him, Master Foy.”

“What do you mean?” asked Foy sharply and flushing.

“What I say.”

“You forget; you are talking of my brother, my own mother’s son.  I will hear no harm of Adrian; his ways are different to ours, but he is good-hearted at bottom.  Do you understand me, Martin?”

“But not your father’s son, master.  It’s the sire sets the strain; I have bred horses, and I know.”

Foy looked at him and hesitated.

“No,” said Martin, answering the question in his eyes.  “I have nothing against him, but he always sees the other side, and that’s bad.  Also he is Spanish——­”

“And you don’t like Spaniards,” broke in Foy.  “Martin, you are a pig-headed, prejudiced, unjust jackass.”

Martin smiled.  “No, master, I don’t like Spaniards, nor will you before you have done with them.  But then it is only fair as they don’t like me.”

“I say, Martin,” said Foy, following a new line of thought, “how did you manage that business so quietly, and why didn’t you let me do my share?”

“Because you’d have made a noise, master, and we didn’t want the watch on us; also, being fulled armed, they might have bettered you.”

“Good reasons, Martin.  How did you do it?  I couldn’t see much.”

“It is a trick I learned up there in Friesland.  Some of the Northmen sailors taught it me.  There is a place in a man’s neck, here at the back, and if he is squeezed there he loses his senses in a second.  Thus, master—­” and putting out his great hand he gripped Foy’s neck in a fashion that caused him the intensest agony.

“Drop it,” said Foy, kicking at his shins.

“I didn’t squeeze; I was only showing you,” answered Martin, opening his eyes.  “Well, when their wits were gone of course it was easy to knock their heads together, so that they mightn’t find them again.  You see,” he added, “if I had left them alive—­well, they are dead anyway, and getting a hot supper by now, I expect.  Which shall it be, master?  Dutch stick or Spanish point?”

“Stick first, then point,” answered Foy.

“Good.  We need ’em both nowadays,” and Martin reached down a pair of ash plants fitted into old sword hilts to protect the hands of the players.