e was showing Georg a ring, and laughingly exclaimed:

"Don't you wish to know what the device means? Look, a serpent biting
its own tail."

"Aha!" replied the Junker, "the symbol of self-torment."

"Good, good! But it has another meaning, which you would do well to
notice, Sir Knight. Do you know the signification of eternity and
eternal faith?"

"No, Fraulein, I wasn't taught to think so deeply at Jena."

"Of course. Your teachers were men. Men and faith, eternal faith!"

"Was Delilah, who betrayed Samson to the Philistines, a man or a woman?"
asked Van Hout.

"She was a woman. The exception, that proves the rule. Isn't that so,
Maria?"

The burgomaster's wife made no reply except a silent nod; then
indignantly pushed back her chair, and the meal was over.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Days and weeks had passed, July was followed by sultry August, and that,
too, was drawing to a close. The Spaniards still surrounded Leyden,
and the city now completely resembled a prison. The soldiers and armed
citizens did their duty wearily and sullenly, there was business enough
at the town-hall, but the magistrates' work was sad and disagreeable;
for no message of hope came from the Prince or the Estates, and
everything to be considered referred to the increasing distress and
the terrible follower of war, the plague, which had made its entry
into Leyden with the famine. Moreover the number of malcontents weekly
increased. The friends of the old order of affairs now raised their
voices more and more loudly, and many a friend of liberty, who saw
his family sickening, joined the Spanish sympathizers and demanded
the surrender of the city. The children went to school and met in
the playgrounds as before, but there was rarely a flash of the merry
pertness of former days, and what had become of the boys' red cheeks and
the round arms of the little girls? The poor drew their belts tighter,
and the morsel of bread, distributed by the city to each individual, was
no longer enough to quiet hunger and support life.

Junker Georg had long been living in Burgomaster Van der Werff's house.

On the morning of August 29th he returned home from an expedition,
carrying a cross-bow in his hand, while a pouch hung over his shoulder.
This time he did not go up-stairs, but sought Barbara in the kitchen.
The widow received him with a friendly nod; her grey eyes sparkled as
brightly as ever, but her round face had grown narrower and there was a
s