A little later the great lady of Stavoren drove in her gold-emblazoned carriage to the shipyard, where a group of men, women, and children had joined the sailors and stood looking at the splendid vessel piled high with the best wheat that ever came out of Dantzic. But when she saw them her anger increased.
“Have you carried out my orders?” she said to the captain, as he came in answer to her summons and stood beside the carriage.
“Then,” the woman commanded, “do it at once. Throw the cargo of wheat into the sea. I want to see, myself.”
But the captain shook his head. “See these poor people,” he said, pointing to the hollow-eyed men, women, and children who were standing there. “Give them the wheat, for they are hungry.”
But the haughty woman silenced him and commanded, “Throw it into the sea!”
Then the captain seemed afraid no longer. He stood straight and fearless before her and declared, “Never, madame!”
But she shouted word to the officers, who dared not disobey, and amid the cries and pleas of the poor, the cargo that would have meant bread for thousands, was thrown into the sea.
The woman watched the waters swallow it up and smiled heartlessly. Then she called to the people, “Did you see it go into the waves?”
“Yes, madame,” repeated the captain, “and a day will come when you will regret what you have done. A day will come when you will be hungry, and no one will pity and help you.”
The mistress looked at him in amazement. Then she laughed loudly. “I, go hungry,” she exclaimed, “I, the richest of all the rich of Stavoren! It is impossible!”
Then she took a diamond ring, held it up for the people to see, and tossed it into the ocean. “When that ring returns into my hand,” she said, “I shall believe what the captain has said.” And she drove away in her splendid carriage, and boasted to the citizens of what she had done.
The next day one of her servants came running to her in wild excitement. “Madame,” she cried, “the cook has found this in the stomach of a fish he is preparing for dinner.” And she held up the diamond ring the woman had tossed into the sea the day before.
The great lady of Stavoren opened her eyes wide and wider. She was amazed and frightened, for she remembered the captain’s words. “Can it be,” she thought, “that they are to come true?”