The Argosy — page 231: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

212 Caterina. girl, speak, and tell me what thou knowest of my son. Speak,” and he shook her roughly. ‘Child, what ails thee?” asked her father. ‘“‘ Gently, neighbour, gently! Let my daughter go.” Vrow Steen, who had listened in a state of terror difficult to describe, thought only of hiding Teresa’s guilt from all the world- ‘Let her alone, you men,” she said; ‘‘see how wan she looks. She is sick—she raves. How, in God’s name can sfe know more than we? Come to bed, child,” and she led her from the room. The mother’s mind was ill at ease since ‘Truda had made her look through Caterina’s keyhole, and the hints about an icebound ship which Teresa had just dropped, added to ‘Truda’s dark whispers of magic and dealings with Satan, filled her with dismay. Magic? Fright- ful word! If such a crime were brought home to her child—and the sight she had seen in the Oratory that morning, added to the strange attraction Caterina certainly possessed for ‘Teresa, made her sick with dread. ‘The father must not know what she feared. If she were to breathe the word magic aloud, Teresa might be ruined. She knew how superstitious were the poor inhabitants of the Haagstraat—how their minds were dark and narrow like their street. Her own mind was as dark and narrow, for she did suspect the Italian lady of practising witchcraft, and she would let Aer perish without pity ; but Teresa, her own child, must be saved. Yet Teresa, she felt, was the person in danger. ‘The daughter-in- law of a rich burgher might be safe, while a suspicion of magic meant danger to an humble peasant girl. It was by the merest accident that Caterina had discovered the: strange power that she possessed over Teresa. Struck by the fair girl’s beauty, she begged her father to let her sit to her as a model, and Hans, much gratified at having his daughter noticed by his master’s family, eagerly complied with her request. This happened six months before the voyage of the Orange, and the intimacy had very much progressed since then. Caterina’s chief interest in Teresa arose from her power over her; but the poor girl adored the hand- some, dark lady—the only lady with whom she had come in contact. She loved her for her kind manner, her gracious ways, so different from those of the women in the Haagstraat ; and she liked to comb her long hair, and to pin on her Queen Elizabeth ruff while she talked of Jan, the chosen follower of Captain Heemskerk. Since the passionate Italian, wrongly called cold and proud by her Dutch acquaintances, had discovered that she could send ‘Teresa’s spirit upon a mission of investigation in the track of the Orange, while her fair form lay on the couch, she had existed in a state of suppressed excitement, and had had much difficulty in hiding her knowledge from her father and from Amsterdam in general. Old Heemskerk was fond of dining with the burghers, and insisted that she should accompany him. Of course the conversation at Eomichbooks.co