the balcony, and waved it as joyously as
ever conqueror unfurled his banner after a hard-won fight. The dove came
nearer--alighted, slipped into the cote, and a few minutes after the
musician appeared with a tiny letter.

"To the magistrates!" cried Wilhelm. "Take it to your husband at once.
Oh! dear lady, dear lady, finish what the dove has begun. Thank God!
thank God! they are already at North-Aa. This will save the poor people
from despair! And now one thing more! You shall have the roasted bird,
but take this grain too; a barley-porridge is the best medicine for
Barbara's condition; I've tried it!"

When evening came, and the musician had told his parents the joyful
news, he ordered the blue dove with the white breast to be caught. "Kill
it outside the house," said he, "I can't bear to see it."

Andreas soon came back with the beheaded pigeon.

His lips were bloody, Wilhelm knew from what, yet he did not reprove the
hungry boy, but merely said:

"Fie, you pole-cat!"

Early the next morning a second dove returned. The letters the
winged messengers had brought were read aloud from the windows of the
town-hall, and the courage of the populace, pressed to the extremest
limits of endurance, flickered up anew and helped them bear their
misery. One of the letters was addressed to the magistrates, the other
to Janus Dousa; they sounded confident and hopeful, and the Prince,
the faithful shield of liberty, the friend and guide of the people, had
recovered from his sickness and visited the vessels and troops intended
for the relief of Leyden. Rescue was so near, but the north-east wind
would not change, and the water did not rise. Great numbers of citizens,
soldiers, magistrates and women stood on the citadel and other elevated
places, gazing into the distance.

A thousand hands were clasped in fervent prayer, and the eyes of all
were turned in feverish expectation and eager yearning towards the
south, but the boundary line of the waves did not move; and the sun, as
if in mockery, burst cheerily through the mists of the autumn morning,
imparted a pleasant warmth to the keen air, and in the evening sank
towards the west in the midst of radiant light, diffusing its golden
rays far and wide. The cloudless blue sky arched pitilessly over the
city, and at night glittered with thousands of twinkling stars. Early
on the morning of the twenty-ninth the mists grew denser, the grass
remained dry, the fogs lifted, the cool air c