them if we once got our sails up, for the Venture can sail faster
than these lubberly Spaniards; but they would send rowboats after
us, and unless the wind was strong these would speedily overhaul
us."

"Well, I must think it over," Captain Martin said. "I should be
sorry indeed to lose my ship, which would be well nigh ruin to me,
but if there is no other way we must make for Haarlem by boat."

The next day the work of unloading continued. In the afternoon the
captain of the French ship lying outside them came on board. He had
been in the habit of trading with Holland, and addressed Captain
Martin in Dutch.

"Are you likely to be lying here long?" he asked. "I want to get
my vessel alongside the wharf as soon as I can, for it is slow work
unloading into these lighters. There are one or two ships going
out in the morning, but I would rather have got in somewhere about
this point if I could, for the warehouses of Mynheer Strous, to
whom my goods are consigned, lie just opposite."

"Will you come down into my cabin and have a glass of wine with
me," Captain Martin said, "and then we can talk it over?"

Captain Martin discovered, without much trouble, that the French
captain was a Huguenot, and that his sympathies were all with the
people of the Netherlands.

"Now," he said, "I can speak freely to you. I was ashore the day
before yesterday, and learned that my wife's father, her three