Quest of Hope(185)
Heinrich cried louder, “Father Pieter! ‘Tis me!” Suddenly, Solomon’s ears lifted and his eyes brightened. The dog bolted away from Heinrich and toward his old master like a gray comet speeding across the sky. And when he drew close, old Pieter’s legs went wobbly and his arms opened wide. The priest fell to his knees and cried for joy as his shaggy friend leapt into his happy embrace.
Heinrich finally reached the old man who was now tumbled onto the earth by his wiggling, licking companion. “Hear me, Pieter!” panted Heinrich as he scanned the faces of the curious children behind him.
Pieter stood and squinted. He shielded his face from the sun, then gasped. “Friend!” He lunged toward the man, speechless and wet-eyed. “By the saints above …”
Heinrich was in no mood for pleasantries; he was thinking only of his sons. The burly baker stumbled past the priest and over the rocks into the wary throng of children gathering about. Impatient, he cried, “Where are my sons?”
Confused, Pieter stared blankly. “Who … who are your sons?”
“Karl and Wil… My name is Heinrich, Heinrich of Weyer! Where are they?”
Dumfounded, Pieter pointed to a ship warping toward them from the docks. “Wil is aboard—”
“Hear me!” interrupted Heinrich. “The children needs off the ship. … They’re to be sold as slaves!” The frantic man stared desperately at the San Marco whose sails had gone limp and now bobbed lightly in a dead calm. His worst fears had come true.
Staring at the one-eyed, wheezing man in horror, old Pieter did not know what to do. “Are you sure, man?”
“Aye! I heard it with my own ears in the tavern just beyond.”
Pieter turned his face quickly toward the approaching ship, then rushed with all the others to the water’s edge where he fell to his knees in prayer. “Father, shield them, shield my lambs, my Frieda and Otto, Wilhelm and m’little Heinz! Protect them all, oh Father, save them this day!” The ship was now almost close enough for the cheerful faces of its crusaders to be seen smiling and laughing at their comrades on shore.
Heinrich jumped up and down, waving his arm in heart-wrenching desperation. “Wil… Karl!” he choked. If only he could fly across the waves!
Pieter suddenly leapt to his feet shouting, “Everyone, everyone, the signal … the signal! I have a signal… it shall call them to come!” The old man stretched his arms wide, like man on a cross, and began to spin. “Do this!” he cried. “Do as I do!” Round and round he turned, stumbling and falling atop the sharp rocks, only to stand and spin again. Solomon whirled, then one perplexed child, then another, all mimicking the strange secret signal.
Heinrich’s chest heaved, his mouth was dry, his mind raced. His eye fell upon Wil’s shining hair, and his hands naively waving less than two bowshots away.
“Herr Friend!” squealed a young girl. “Spin … y’must spin! ‘Tis Pieter’s call to come!”
Confused, Heinrich raised his arm to shoulder height and began to twirl, round and round, trusting the old priest and his mysterious signal. The man spun the best he could. He turned and turned like a wobbly top until someone cried, “Look, Father Pieter! There … They’re jumping!”
Indeed, over the side of the wooden rail dropped one child, then another and another. “Could it be?” The anxious man sucked short gasps of air. His ears cocked to the muffled shouts and oaths that could be now heard above the cries of swooping gulls and splashing surf. He winced as he saw a flash of steel and groaned as a swarm of wool caps rushed from port to starboard, then fore to aft. Another crusader dropped over the rail; a stout lad, neither Wil nor Karl.
Splashing into the surf, Heinrich strained to see the little heads now bobbing anxiously in the waves; he scanned from bow to stern and then again. At long last he spied his eldest son, now dashing frantically across the deck. The brave lad had waited until the very end, until each of his comrades had fallen to the safe blue waters below. Heinrich’s muscles knotted and twitched and he moaned aloud. Feeling like a useless, aging cripple, he staggered about, bawling loud, anguished cries. And while he floundered in the rising tide of his own helplessness, young Wil’s life was imperiled on fortune’s delicate edge.
Heinrich could do little more. He stood paralyzed in thigh-deep water weak and confused, lost, and utterly helpless. Like a red-budded poppy closed and drooping beneath the weight of a deluge, Heinrich stood slump-shouldered and bowed by the burdens of his woe. He felt impotent; stripped of all he had ever hoped to be. He had failed his Order and it had forsaken him. Shamed by his weakness, he stared, vacant and mute, empty of confidence, void of hope.