A Dangerous Mission
"I hear you have a letter for me from my good friend the burgomaster of Enkhuizen," the Prince of Orange said, as Ned with a deep reverence approached the table at which he was sitting. "He sends me no ill news, I hope?"

"No, your excellency," Ned said. "It is on a matter personal to myself that he has been good enough to write to you, and I crave your pardon beforehand for occupying your time for a moment with so unimportant a subject."

The prince glanced at him keenly as he was speaking, and saw that the young fellow before him was using no mere form of words, but that he really felt embarrassed at the thought that he was intruding upon his labours. He opened the letter and glanced down it.

"Ah! you are English," he said in surprise. "I thought you a countryman of mine."

"My mother is from Holland, sir," Ned replied; "and has brought me up to speak her language as well as my father's, and to feel that Holland is my country as much as England."

"And you are the son of the English captain who, lately, as I heard, being stopped in his passage down the Zuider Zee by the Spanish ship Don Pedro, defended himself so stoutly that he inflicted great loss and damage upon the Spaniard, and brought his ship into Enkhuizen without further damage than a grievous wound to himself. The burgomaster tells me that you are anxious to enter my service as a volunteer, and that you have the permission of your parents to do so.