“Egad! I think I’ve run up my account with him,” mutters the Englishman. Then he turns suddenly to Antony and says: “A word with you. On my first visit here, for my safety you invented for my use the name of Captain Guido Amati, of Romero’s foot. There is another living Guido Amati, Captain of Romero’s foot.” “Certainly there is,” returns Oliver, and astounds Guy. “I took the name from the roster of Romero’s regiment. It was then quartered in Friesland, two hundred miles from here, the most distant of all the Netherland provinces, and I thought it better to give you a name that could be verified. But what does this matter?” “Matter!” replies Chester glumly. “Only this, that I have just learned that Guido Amati has been promoted on my account to Major in his regiment; that Captain Guido Amati of Romero’s foot has been behaving in some wild, reckless kind of manner, apparently with ladies, and that Major Guido Amati has just been severely cautioned to behave himself from this time forth most circumspectly. Zounds!” he goes on savagely, “if this gentleman I am christened after doesn’t take good care he’ll have an account to render to me, who have now his sins on my shoulders!” Then he bursts into a laugh in which Oliver joins, and says more complacently: “But I’ve also got the reputation of being the bravest man in the army. Besides, I am the third cousin of the Duke of Medina Cœli, and, I imagine, entitled to keep my hat on in the presence of Philip II. of Spain.” “Very well, my grandee,” returns Antony smiling. “Here is the bill the Countess de Pariza has run up against you—two hundred guilders! That’s your half of the affair. If his Highness of Alva hadn’t chanced along I imagine she’d have bought all in Bodé Volcker’s warehouses.” “A—ah,” sighs Guy, passing over the money, “I’d give everything I have for another tête-à-tête with my—my promised wife,” he struggles with a tear as he thinks of the beautiful being whose love he has captured by a coup de main. “Your promised wife!” gasps Oliver. “Morbleu! you have been making hay,” next shortly says: “By heaven, if Alva ever puts hand on you and knows this, dread the reckoning, my audacious Englishman. Besides, you’ll have to be quick about this matter if you ever get her!” “Why so?” “Alva will not remain in the Netherlands much longer. The country is crushed (pacified he calls it), though the embers are smouldering. He’s collecting the tenth penny tax, but not paying the troops. Some of the money he sends to Spain—just enough to keep Philip quiet, but the balance—God knows what he does with it, though I guess it is for transmission to Italy or to Spain, to make him equal in wealth to many a king.” “By St. George, if I could get my hands on it,” answers the Englishman, the instinct of the sea rover coming up in him. “That would be a fitting dower for his fair daughter.”