"Reach hither your hand, boy."
And as he compared the slender, shapely hand of such finely-textured
skin with the breadth of his own horny giant's paw, he tossed it from
him, shaking his head with a gesture as if he had no commands for
such feminine-looking fingers to execute, and mortifying Ebbo not a
little. "Ah!" said Christina, apologetically, "it always grieved
your mother that the boys would resemble me and mine. But, when
daylight comes, Ebbo will show you that he has not lost the old
German strength."
"No doubt--no doubt," said Sir Eberhard, hastily, "since he has slain
Schlangenwald; and, if the former state of things be at an end, the
less he takes after the ancient stock the better. But I am an old
man now, Stine, though thou look'st fair and fresh as ever, and I do
not know what to make of these things. White napery on the table;
glass drinking things;--nay, were it not for thee and the
Schneiderlein, I should not know I was at home."
He was led back to his narration, and it appeared that, after some
years spent at the oar, certain bleedings from the lungs, the remains
of his wound, had become so much more severe as to render him useless
for naval purposes; and, as he escaped actually dying during a
voyage, he was allowed to lie by on coming into port till he had in
some degree recovered, and then had been set to labour at the
fortifications, chained to another prisoner, and toiling between the
burning sand and burning sun, but treated with less horrible severity
than the necessities of the sea had occasioned on board ship, and
experiencing the benefit of intercourse with the better class of
captives, whom their miserable fate had thrown into the hands of the
Moors.
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