About eight yards from the cutter, in a thick patch of water-lilies, just at this moment an otter rose to take air—an old dog-otter, for it was grey-headed. One of the Spaniards in the boat caught sight of the ring it made, and picking up a stone from the ballast threw it at it idly. The otter vanished. “We have been seeking each other a long while, but have never come to blows yet, although, being a brave man, I know you would wish it,” said Red Martin modestly. “Señor Ramiro, will you do me the honour to overlook my humble birth and come ashore with me for a few minutes, man against man. The odds would be in your favour, for you have armour and I have nothing but a worn bull’s hide, also you have my good sword Silence and I only a wood-man’s axe. Still I will risk it, and, what is more, trusting to your good faith, we are willing to wager the treasure of Hendrik Brant upon the issue.” So soon as they understood this challenge a roar of laughter went up from the Spaniards in the boat, in which Ramiro himself joined heartily. The idea of anyone voluntarily entering upon a single combat with the terrible Frisian giant, who for months had been a name of fear among the thousands that beleaguered Haarlem, struck them as really ludicrous. But of a sudden they ceased laughing, and one and all stared with a strange anxiety at the bottom of their boat, much as terrier dogs stare at the earth beneath which they hear invisible vermin on the move. Then a great shouting arose among them, and they looked eagerly over the gunwales; yes, and began to stab at the water with their swords. But all the while through the tumult and voices came a steady, regular sound as of a person knocking heavily on the further side of a thick door. “Mother of Heaven!” screamed someone in the cutter, “we are scuttled,” and they began to tear at the false bottom of their boat, while others stabbed still more furiously at the surface of the Mere. Now, rising one by one to the face of that quiet water, could be seen bubbles, and the line of them ran from the cutter towards the rowing boat. Presently, within six feet of it, axe in hand, rose the strange and dreadful figure of a naked, skeleton-like woman covered with mud and green weeds, and bleeding from great wounds in the back and sides. There it stood, shaking an axe at the terror-stricken Spaniards, and screaming in short gasps, “Paid back! paid back, Ramiro! Now sink and drown, you dog, or come, visit Red Martin on the shore.” “Well done, Martha,” roared Martin, as he dragged her dying into the boat. While he spoke, lo! the cutter began to fill and sink. “There is but one chance for it,” cried Ramiro, “overboard and at them. It is not deep,” and springing into the water, which reached to his neck, he began to wade towards the shore.