The Sea Beggars Read Online Free Page B

passion, which seemed to flow through the crowd. He felt himself part of this great wounded beast of a crowd, its expectations poisoned by the King’s treachery. Overhead the cathedral’s offset spire towered up against the rushing clouds; the men ranged before it to defend it seemed tiny by comparison, tiny and insignificant. Jan started forward. All those around him started forward too, at the same time, with a growl like dogs unleashed, and in time with these others, these other parts of himself, he lost his head and flung himself on the Catholics.
    All he wanted was to hurt them; he struck out with his fists at their faces and felt flesh give under his knuckles, and he kicked at them and his shoes found meat and bone. Around him bodies pressed so tight he could scarcely move. One arm was pinned. He lashed out at the people around him. Throwing his head back he howled like a wolf in rage. Something hard thrust into his stomach.
    The wind burst from him. He doubled over, falling to his knees on the cobblestones, and at once feet pounded on his back, knocked him flat, ground him into the pavement. He gasped. Once the air was gone out of his lungs he could not swell his body enough to take in another breath. His face scraped on the cobblestones. Desperately he realized he was being trampled. He surged forward, trying to get to hands and knees, and was knocked down again under the weight of the mob.
    His eyes blurred. A sharp pain radiated through his side, and his hands hurt. He lunged upward, strong with a panicky mad strength, and got his feet under him and stood. Blind and stupid from pain, he thrust out his arms ahead of him and tore a way through the surging scrambling mass of bodies. His legs hurt so badly he thought they would give way under him and drop him into the street again, and he knew that would be the end of him and fought with every step to keep upright. Abruptly his outstretched arms milled the air. He had come to the edge of the crowd. Forward he plunged, into an alley between buildings, and fell into the dirt and rolled over until he lay against a wall, protected by the wall, and covered his face with his arms and lost consciousness.
    At first it was rage that drove Mies, a red fury; he searched for his son through the streets of Antwerp as if for a deadly enemy. Damn him for running off. Damn him for fighting—because Mies knew that Jan was fighting, somewhere, in the madness that had seized Antwerp this day and that was continuing on into the night. His mind fixed on Jan as if Jan himself had caused the King’s decision.
    He walked on and on through the city in his search, through the streets clogged with angry people who fought and shouted and threw stones at one another. Before the cathedral, guarded around and around by armed men, he saw bodies on the cobblestones and heard about the mob’s charge barehanded against the great building, flesh against stone, life against death.
    By then the night was falling. In the growing darkness the friendly, familiar city seemed to disappear; the shrieks that sounded in the night were forest noises, the crash of something breaking, the thunder of running feet, all these alien in Antwerp, where now everyone ought to be at home, at supper, reading the Bible, playing draughts. Now Mies began to be afraid.
    He found himself a lantern and went on, calling Jan’s name, looking into corners and alleyways, and peering at the faces of every gang that passed him.
    Once he opened his heart to fear a thousand fears came at him. Jan was dead, surely, or he would have gone home to eat. Jan had been carried off, or he would not have left the wharf in the first place. Jan was lying somewhere dying, and Mies could not find him to help him—
    Someone jumped him, striking him down. Mies rebounded with the energy of dread and despair and laid about him with the lantern. The dark figure of his attacker staggered backward, and Mies leapt at him, roaring. With