"Ah, Hercules is a good sailor, and a strong animal. 'Tis fit he should wait upon you, since you be in my present favour. Moreover, like cureth like, as it is said; therefore he is better here tending you, than casting sheep's eyes on one who is as the sun above his head. I have had a mind to admonish him to remove the offence of his visage from her purview, for I perceived, by my own mislike of it, that it was a weariness to her. The pure glass is dimmed by the breath of the beholder, and a face at the window darkeneth a chamber." "Sir Ludar will be here soon," said I; "I pray you stay and tell him this." "No," said he, looking, I thought, a little alarmed. "If the cloud withdraw not from the sun's path of his own motion, neither will he scatter for our bidding. Therefore, let him be. And, indeed, I stay here too long, my Dutchman. Who shall say but the dove sigheth already for her truant mate? So farewell; and count me thy patron." He came often after this, always with the same brave talk. One day, however, he seemed more like a plain man and said: "'Tis time thou wert up, my Hollander. There is thunder in the air, the horizon is big with clouds, the dull sea rustleth with the coming storm, and I smell the wind afar off." "Why," said I, starting up, "Ludar told me but just now the weather was fair and settled, and that the breeze was shifting to the south." "I spoke not of the weather," said he. "Let it be. The thunder may hide beneath a brow, the lightning may flash from out two eyelids, and the storm may break in a man's breast." "For Heaven's sake, speak plain," said I. "What do you mean?" "Wait and see," said he, "I like not these French dogs. Only let thy eye be keen, thy ear quick, and thy hand ready, my Hollander, and stand by me when I call on thee." More I could not get out of him. When I spoke of it to Ludar afterwards, he said: "Maybe the little antic is right. Yet they are too sorry a crew, and too small to do mischief. They suspect us of carrying treasure aboard, and your friend the captain, I take it, is the roundest villain of them all." I vowed the captain was no friend of mine; yet I believed him honest. But as for the crew, it came to my mind then what the drunken fellow had blabbed out the first night; and I said it was like enough to be true. That afternoon I rose from my sick-bed and came on deck. I remember to this hour the joy of that afternoon.