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Landais, whose conduct was described by Jones as being that of "either a fool, a madman, or a villain," was afterwards dismissed the service, but not until he had cut up other extraordinary pranks. He now went off with his swift and uninjured frigate to the Texel, leaving Jones, laden down with prisoners and wounded, unassisted.
"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed." At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh well-pleased, too, the minx, as I could see. "What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned, "with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and Lord, how went it?
We took dinner with our host and paid him for our lodging there. About seven o'clock we went in the Texel barge, where we found many passengers, but it was ten o'clock at night before we got off. After leaving the piles we had a strong head wind, which gradually increased to blow so hard that we could scarcely keep before it, fearing to sail into others. 15th, Thursday.
In 1595, then, nearly a century after da Gama had shown the way, four caravels under the command of Houtman, the banner of the Netherlands flaunting from their towering sterns, sailed grandly out of the Texel, slipped past the white chalk cliffs of Dover, sped southward before the trades, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and laid their course across the Indian Ocean for the Spice Islands.
The battle of the Texel, closing the long series of wars in which the Dutch and English contended on equal terms for the mastery of the seas, saw the Dutch navy in its highest efficiency, and its greatest ornament, De Ruyter, at the summit of his glory.
"Go within," he said; "don quickly your saint's-day dress, and betake yourself down to the house of Master Gerard von Sturm, the city chamberlain, and tell him all that he asks of you readily and truly." "But, father," said I, "suppose he asks of me that which might condemn one who has trusted me, what am I to say?" "Tut, boy," said my father, impatiently, "you mean young Michael Texel.
Surely even your vanity can take nothing out of a girl saying that she cannot abide you." But I answered nothing to this, only stroked the mustache which was beginning to thrive admirably on my upper lip. "Of all the " began Helene, looking at me fixedly. Then she stopped. "Well," said I, pausing in the caressing of my chin, "what do I worse every day than make love to Katrin Texel?"
They sailed out of the Texel on the 28th of October, 1628; and as it would be tedious and troublesome to the reader to set down a long account of things perfectly well known, I shall say nothing of the occurrences that happened in their passage to the Cape of Good Hope; but content myself with observing that on the 4th of June, in the following year 1629, this vessel, the Batavia, being separated from the fleet in a storm, was driven on the Abrollos or shoals, which lie in the latitude of 28 degrees south, and which have been since called by the Dutch, the Abrollos of Frederic Houtman.
"Farther along the coast, invisible but known to be performing a most perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes lining both the outer and inner of the sand-banks of the Flemish coasts and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate and dangerous cruising-ground between Dunkirk and Texel.
"And the dog looked up and gave one deep bark, and as soon as he had barked the wind appeared to lull he barked again twice, and there was a dead calm he barked again thrice, and the seas went down and he patted the dog on the head, and the animal then bayed loud for a minute or two, and then, to the astonishment and fear of all, instead of the vessel being within a cable's length of the Texel sands in a heavy gale, and without hope, the Foreland lights were but two miles on our beam with a clear sky and smooth water."
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