“What shall I do with this picture which is worth so much?” said Foy helplessly, “for in truth I fear to keep the thing.”
“Give it to me, master,” said Martin; “the secret of the treasure may as well lie with the legacy that is charged on it.” Then once more he unscrewed the handle of the sword Silence, and having folded up the paper and wrapped it round with a piece of linen, he thrust it away into the hollow hilt.
“Now that sword is worth more than some people might think,” Martin said as he restored it to the scabbard, “but I hope that those who come to seek its secret may have to travel up its blade. Well, when shall we be moving?”
“Listen,” said Martha. “Would you two men dare a great deed upon those Spaniards? Their ship is burnt, but there are a score or over of them, and they have two large boats. Now at the dawn they will see the mast of this vessel and attack it in the boats thinking to find the treasure. Well, if as they win aboard we can manage to fire the matches——”
“There may be fewer Spaniards left to plague us,” suggested Foy.
“And believing it to be blown up no one will trouble about that money further,” added Martin. “Oh! the plan is good, but dangerous. Come, let us talk it over.”
The dawn broke in a flood of yellow light on the surface of the Haarlem Mere. Presently from the direction of the Spanish vessel, which was still burning sullenly, came a sound of beating oars. Now the three watchers in the _Swallow_ saw two boatloads of armed men, one of them with a small sail set, swooping down towards them. When they were within a hundred yards Martha muttered, “It is time,” and Foy ran hither and thither with a candle firing the slow-matches; also to make sure he cast the candle among a few handfuls of oil-soaked shreds of canvas that lay ready at the bottom of the hatchway. Then with the others, without the Spaniards being able to see them, he slipped over the side of the little vessel into the shallow water that was clothed with tall reeds, and waded through it to the island.
Once on firm land, they ran a hundred yards or so till they reached a clump of swamp willows, and took shelter behind them. Indeed, Foy did more, for he climbed the trunk of one of the willows high enough to see over the reeds to the ship _Swallow_ and the lake beyond. By this time the Spaniards were alongside the _Swallow_, for he could hear their captain hailing him who leant over the taffrail, and commanding all on board to surrender under pain of being put to death. But from the man in the stern came no answer, which was scarcely strange, seeing that it was the dead pilot, Hans, to whom they talked in the misty dawn, whose body Martin had lashed thus to deceive them. So they fired at the pilot, who took no notice, and then began to clamber on board the ship. Presently all the men were out of the first boat—that with the sail set on it—except two, the steersman and the captain, whom, from his dress and demeanour, Foy took to be the one-eyed Spaniard, Ramiro, although of this he was too far off to make sure. It was certain, however, that this man did not mean to board the _Swallow_, for of a sudden he put his boat about, and the wind catching the sail soon drew him clear of her.