Dirk Hartog, to whom I bade good-bye after the wedding, for his
restless spirit was away again upon a fresh voyage, predicted I would
one day become weary of inaction.
"If ever the roving spirit comes over thee, Peter," he said as he wrung
my hand at parting, "there's always a place for thee aboard my ship.
Travel once tasted is a lodestone that draws the spirit from the
cosiest corner to fresh adventure."
But at this I shook my head. "Here is my lodestone," I said, and I
pressed Anna to my heart.
But who can foretell the future, or predict the decrees of Fate?
CHAPTER XXVII
ONCE MORE TO THE SOUTH
Five years of wedded happiness followed my return to Amsterdam from my
second voyage with Dirk Hartog into the Southern Seas.
I had now come to regard myself as being past the age of adventure. My
income was large, my estate substantial; and the wealth I had brought
back with me from the Island of Gems, shrewdly invested by my
father-in-law, the Count of Holstein, enabled me to maintain a position
compatible with the dignity of the noble family into which, through my
marriage with Anna Holstein, I was admitted a member.
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