Turning back on his skates Chester makes for his ship, near which he finds Antony and two or three others bending over the body of the Spanish officer Guy had left so suddenly. “They killed him after you went on,” remarks Oliver. “I have kept them away from his body because of you. He was a very gallant gentleman.” “Because of me?” cries Guy. “Do you think I will gloat over a fallen hero. Still if accident had not come to me I should have finished him myself, I think, though he had a rare sword’s play in his arm.” “That would have been horrible,” says the painter. “Why?” “You would have committed suicide.” “Suicide! What do you mean?” “I mean that there will be weeping soon from eyes you love, when your death is reported to her.” “Buffoon! What do you mean?” “I mean that this is Colonel Guido Amati, the man Hermoine de Alva thinks you are!” “Good heavens!” says Chester, bending over the dead man. “I’ve searched his person and taken his valuables; not for myself, but for transmission to his family,” adds the painter; “but this letter concerns you.” Hastily looking at the document by the light of the Northern sun that is sinking in the west, Chester gives a sudden start. It is in the handwriting he knows and loves, and has seen so little of, but does not forget, and reads: “God bless you, gallant one; you have become a Colonel. That promotion was quick, wasn’t it? That was my doing. A word of advice to you, my hero. Capture or slay the First of the English, and you are sure to be a general; that will bring you to the church door, where Hermoine awaits you.” “Good God! This is horrible,” mutters Guy. “Sent by the woman I love to kill me. And now she will weep for him.” “Yes, and the more she weeps for him the dearer she loves you. You’re not dead yet. Oh, wonderful transformation scene. Fancy Hermoine’s eyes when she sees the dead alive. Oh God! if I could look upon the eyes of my love who is over there,” Oliver points toward Haarlem. “Guy, help me to save her.” A moment after Antony suddenly cries: “Mon Dieu! what’s the matter with you?” for the Englishman is leaning heavily on him, and is muttering: “A—a bullet must have got through my breast-plate!” Tearing off the steel the painter finds it has, though the wound is not a deep one. Continued loss of blood through all his violent exertions makes him faint and weak, and Chester is carried upon his ship. The Dutch captains yet look very solemn; if this cold continues, the ice will still enclose their vessels and they must be attacked by the great army at Amsterdam, who will never forgive them now they have slain four hundred of the best Spanish troops. “It will take miracles to save us now!” remarks ’t Hoen. “The tide must rise—the wind must come—the ice must melt all at one time. It has happened, but no man has ever seen it, so I suppose old Jan Veeder, our dominé, would call it a miracle—Jan Veeder, who will preach my funeral sermon next week!”