"Lamme! Lamme! May God keep you from harm and bring you back safe."
And she uncovered her face.
"My wife! My wife!" cried Lamme.
And he would have jumped down to her.
"Your faithful wife!" she said, running the while as fast as ever
she could.
Lamme would have leaped down from the deck on to the ice, but he was
restrained by a soldier who caught him by his cloak, and the provost
addressed him, saying:
"You will be hanged if you leave the ship."
Yet again did Lamme try to throw himself down, but an old Beggarman
held him back, telling him that the ice was damp and that he would get
his feet wet. And Lamme sat down on the deck weeping and crying ever:
"My wife! My wife! Let me go and find my wife!"
"You will see her again," said Ulenspiegel. "She loves you, but she
loves God more."
"Mad devil-woman that she is!" cried Lamme. "If she loves God more
than her husband, why does she show herself to me so sweet and so
desirable? And if she loves me, why does she leave me?"
"Can you see clearly to the bottom of a deep well?" demanded
Ulenspiegel.
In the meanwhile the followers of Simonen Bol had appeared on the
scene with a large force of artillery. They shot at the ship, which
promptly repaid them in similar coin. And the bullets broke up the
ice all around. And towards evening a warm rain began to fall, and the
west wind blew from the Atlantic, and the sea grew angry beneath its
covering of ice, and the ice was broken into huge blocks which could
be seen rising and falling to hurl themselves one against the other,
not without danger to the ship, which, nevertheless, as dawn began
to dissipate the clouds of night, opened its sails like a bird of
freedom and sailed out towards the open sea.
There they were joined by the fleet of Messire de Lumey de la Marche,
Admiral of Holland and Zeeland; and on that day the ship of Messire
Très-Long captured a vessel from Biscay that carried a cargo of
mercury, gunpowder, wine, and spices. And the vessel was cleaned to
its marrow, emptied of its men and its booty, even as the bone of
an ox is cleaned by the teeth of a lion. And the Beggarmen took La
Brièle, a strong naval base, well called the Garden of Liberty.
XXVIII
It was at the beginning of May. The sky was clear, the ship sailed
proudly on the billows, and Ulenspiegel sang this song:
The ashes beat on my heart,
The murderers are come;
With daggers have they struck at us,
Fiercely, with fire and sword have they struck at us,
They have bribed us most vilely and spied on us,
Where are love and fidelity now?
In exchange for those sweetest of virtues,
Betrayal and fraud have they heaped on us.
Yet may they that have murdered be murdered themselves!
Beat, beat, drum of war!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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