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It was, or purported to be, written by the priest of the village where the lady lived, and was addressed to the Captain the Count Juan de Montalvo at Leyden.
Montalvo is a good sort of fellow in his own fashion, but he is an extravagant man and a desperate gambler, with a queer history, I fancy at least, nobody knows much about him, not even his brother officers. If you ask them they shrug their shoulders and say that Spain is a big kettle full of all sorts of fish.
For quite a quarter of an hour Montalvo thought the matter over, and then, just as he had given it up and determined to leave things to chance, for a while at least, inspiration came, a splendid, a heaven-sent inspiration. Dirk must not die, Dirk must live, but his continued existence must be the price of the hand of Lysbeth van Hout.
"Well, Senora," asked Montalvo, "if you have sufficiently reflected shall I administer the oath in the form provided?" "Administer it," she said hoarsely. So, descending from the sledge, he stood in front of Lysbeth, and, lifting his cap, repeated the oath to her, an oath strong enough to blast her soul if she swore to it with false intent.
Then the Captain Montalvo had swooped down and carried her away, as a hawk bears off a chicken under the very eyes of the hen-wife, while he donkey that he was could find no words in which to protest.
The Count de Montalvo was holding in his black stallion, and as yet the grey Flemish gelding looped along with a constrained and awkward stride. When, passing from the little mere, they entered the straight of the canal, these two were respectively fourth and fifth. Up the course they sped, through a deserted snow-clad country, past the church of the village of Alkemaade.
An hour later the Captain Montalvo called, and strange to say proved more fortunate. By hook or by crook he obtained the address of the ladies, who were visiting, it appeared, at a seaside village within the limits of a ride.
Now in front of them lay a furlong or more of bad ice encumbered with lumps of frozen snow that had not been cleared away, which caused the sleigh to shake and jump as it struck. Lysbeth looked round. "The Badger is coming up," she said. Montalvo heard, and for the first time laid his whip upon the haunches of his horse, which answered gallantly. But still the Badger came up.
Take them, I beg of you, captain," and emptying a roll of gold into his hand, he counted it with the skill of a merchant, and held it towards him. Montalvo hesitated. Then he took the money, pouring it carelessly into his pocket. "You have not checked the sum," said Dirk.
A long spell of the galleys changes the hardiest man, and by ill luck Montalvo, or Ramiro, to call him by his new name, had been forced to serve nearly his full time. He would have escaped earlier indeed, had he not been foolish enough to join in a mutiny, which was discovered and suppressed.
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