II.

Peter felt animated with new life. A fresh store of courage and
enthusiasm filled his breast, for he constantly received a new supply
from the stout-hearted woman by his side.

Under the pressure of the terrible responsibility he endured, and urged
by his fellow-magistrates, he had consented, at the meeting of the
council, to write to Valdez and ask him to give free passage to
embassadors, who were to entreat the estates and the Prince of Orange to
release the tortured city from her oath.

Valdez made every effort to induce the burgomaster to enter into farther
negotiations, but the latter remained firm, and no petition for release
from the sacred duty of resistance left the city. The two Van der Does,
Van Hout, Junker von Warmond, and other resolute men, who had already, in
the great assembly, denounced any intercourse with the enemy, now
valiantly supported him against his fellow-magistrates and the council,
that with the exception of seven of its members, persistently and
vehemently urged the commencement of negotiations.

Adrian rapidly recovered, but Doctor Bontius's prediction was terribly
fulfilled, for famine and pestilence vied with each other in horrible
fury, and destroyed almost half of all the inhabitants of the flourishing
city. Intense was the gloom, dark the sky, yet even amidst the cruel woe
there was many an hour in which bright sunshine illumined souls, and hope
unfurled her green banner. The citizens of Leyden rose from their couches
more joyously, than a bride roused by the singing of her companions on
her wedding-day, when on the morning of September eleventh loud and
long-continued cannonading was heard from the distance, and the sky
became suffused with a crimson glow. The villages southwest of the city
were burning. Every house, every barn that sunk into ashes, burying the
property of honest men, was a bonfire to the despairing citizens.

The Beggars were approaching!

Yonder, where the cannon thundered and the horizon glowed, lay the
Land-scheiding, the bulwark which for centuries had guarded the plains
surrounding Leyden from the assaults of the waves, and now barred the way
of the fleet bringing assistance.

"Fall, protecting walls, rise, tempest, swallow thy prey, raging sea,
destroy the property of the husbandman, ruin our fields and meadows, but
drown the foe or drive him hence." So sang Janus Dousa, so rang a voice
in Peter's soul, so prayed Maria, and with her thousands of me