So the Dover Lass and the two Gueux ships are wafted by light breezes toward Flushing quay. Just as they make landing there, a great commotion arises in the town. Some quarter of an hour before this they have noted a small pinnace with single mast and lateen sail headed from the south, Antwerp-way, pass to the dock before them. From this three gentlemen in very fine clothes and with Spanish appearance have landed laughingly, and strolled up into the town. Even as De Ryk and Chester step upon the quay, these three come running hurriedly from out the center of the place toward the dock, pursued by such a motley mob as quiet Flushing never saw before. It is as if two hundred priests and nuns, drunk with blood, were after them, for all these monks and nuns are brawny pirates, some having hassocks and cowls upon them, others wearing the robes of nuns. Their leader, fierce Dirk Duyvel himself, is habited as lady abbess, and all are armed to the teeth with pistol and pike or sword and arquebus. “Down with the murderous Spanish!” cry some. “Hang them up on high, quick!” yell others. “Into the sea with Alva’s butchers!” is the shout of the rest, all this larded with fearful imprecations and terrible Dutch oaths. Seeing their retreat to their boat cut off by De Ryk’s men, the leader of these three Spaniards comes speeding ahead of his foremost pursuers, and bowing before De Ryk takes off from his finger a gaudy signet ring, and presenting it to the Gueux captain, pants: “I—I surrender to you. I—I did not know this town was in possession of the—the rebels. By this ring guard me from sudden death. I am noble. I can pay a large ransom. I am Alva’s engineer.” He says this anxiously and breathlessly, for the crowd are upon him. Guy now recognizes him with astonishment, as Paciotto, Alva’s great military engineer, whom he had seen at the Captain General’s side in Antwerp. “You know me?” Paciotto gasps. “Too well!” cries the throng, who now have hands on him. “Too well!” mutters De Ryk, “But I’ll save you from immediate damnation,” and he and Guy and one or two of his officers with drawn swords protect these three men, who in another minute would have been hacked to pieces by the Beggars of the Sea. For these sea rovers, having drunk victory at the Briel, are now drunk with blood also, having requited in kind upon the Spaniard some of the butcheries of the last five years—one or two of the most ferocious eating Castilian heart with gusto and drinking Italian blood con amore. Every one of them has some butchered brother or murdered father or outraged wife to make him as inhuman as his foes. What chance has any officer of Alva’s with such a mob? Guy soon finds Paciotto has not even choice of his manner of death. While De Ryk and he save the Italian from immediate violence a number of the Gueux have boarded the little Spanish sloop in which he came and butchered the hapless crew with wild shouts of joy and triumph.