He ceased, pale and trembling, and a silence fell upon the room and all in it, a sad and heavy silence, for in his voice they caught the note of prophecy. Martin broke it.
“It may be so, master,” he said; “but, your pardon, you should have thought of that before you undertook this duty. There was no call upon you to send the Heer Foy and myself to The Hague to bring away this trash, but you did it as would any other honest man. Well, now it is done, and we must take our chance, but I say this—if you are wise, my masters, yes, and you ladies also, before you leave this room you will swear upon the Bible, every one of you, never to whisper the word treasure, never to think of it except to believe that it is gone—lost beneath the waters of the Haarlemer Meer. Never to whisper it, no, mistress, not even to the Heer Adrian, your son who lies sick abed upstairs.”
“You have learnt wisdom somewhere of late years, Martin, since you stopped drinking and fighting,” said Dirk drily, “and for my part before God I swear it.”
“And so do I.” “And I.” “And I.” “And I,” echoed the others, Martin, who spoke last, adding, “Yes, I swear that I will never speak of it; no, _not even to my young master, Adrian, who lies sick abed upstairs._”
Adrian made a good, though not a very quick recovery. He had lost a great deal of blood, but the vessel closed without further complications, so that it remained only to renew his strength by rest and ample food. For ten days or so after the return of Foy and Martin, he was kept in bed and nursed by the women of the house. Elsa’s share in this treatment was to read to him from the Spanish romances which he admired. Very soon, however, he found that he admired Elsa herself even more than the romances, and would ask her to shut the book that he might talk to her. So long as his conversation was about himself, his dreams, plans and ambitions, she fell into it readily enough; but when he began to turn it upon _herself_, and to lard it with compliment and amorous innuendo, then she demurred, and fled to the romances for refuge.
Handsome as he might be, Adrian had no attractions for Elsa. About him there was something too exaggerated for her taste; moreover he was Spanish, Spanish in his beauty, Spanish in the cast of his mind, and all Spaniards were hateful to her. Deep down in her heart also lay a second reason for this repugnance; the man reminded her of another man who for months had been a nightmare to her soul, the Hague spy, Ramiro. This Ramiro she had observed closely. Though she had not seen him very often his terrible reputation was familiar to her. She knew also, for her father had told her as much, that it was he who was drawing the nets about him at The Hague, and who plotted day and night to rob him of his wealth.