t, and she probably has
saved up a whole stockingful of guilders. I feel very much inclined to
go back with you at once to assist you in your wooing."

"Mynheer," said the one-eyed mariner, putting his finger to his nose,
"`good wine needs no bush.' I have an idea or two. If this dame is so
very charming, somebody with more personal attractions than I possess
will have won her before I have the happiness of making her
acquaintance; and you forget that, though I have got the boat, I have to
obtain the fishing lines to catch the fish, to sell the fish, to go on
doing that for some years, and then to build the house, and when the
house is built it will be time enough for me to come in search of Vrouw
Johanna Klack."

"Well, well, we'll talk about that to-morrow morning," said the Baron,
who did not feel very sanguine as to the speedy disposal of Johanna
Klack's fair hand.

Pieter, wishing them good night, went to sleep on board his boat, while
they turned into two bunks in the small cabin of the sloop and slept
soundly.

CHAPTER SIX.

When the Count and the Baron awoke, they found to their surprise that
the sloop was not only afloat but under weigh, and sailing over the
waters of the Zuyder Zee. The skipper, who was short and broad, had a
crew of two men, who were, he assured his passengers, amply sufficient
for navigating the sloop.

"We shall not reach Amsterdam quite as soon as you might have expected,
Mynheers," he said; "for I purpose putting in at Monnickendam for a few
hours. It is not a very lively place, though it was once a wealthy
city, one of the twenty great towns of Holland, but its glory has passed
away."

As the object of the Count and the Baron was to see the world, they
willingly agreed to visit this dead city of the Zuyder Zee. They were
accordingly rowed on shore in the sloop's boat.

"Well, this does seem to be a city of the dead, or else the inhabitants,
if there are any, have gone to sleep," observed the Baron, as he and the
Count paced the streets, which were payed with yellow bricks. The
houses were all red, and the Venetian shutters green--one house was
almost exactly like another; not a door nor a window was open, not a
face was to be seen at any of them; through the entire length of one
long thoroughfare they met not a single person--not a cat, nor a dog,
nor a sign of life. They went through street after street--every street
was the same; only when they returned to the ha