t the time were many.

"It is horrible," he said, "horrible. I only hope that we--I mean
you--may escape. The house is unbearably close. I am going to walk
in the courtyard," and away he went, for the moment, at any rate,
forgetting all about Elsa and the love potion.

CHAPTER XVIII

FOY SEES A VISION

Never since that day when, many years before, she had bought the safety
of the man she loved by promising herself in marriage to his rival, had
Lysbeth slept so ill as she did upon this night. Montalvo was alive.
Montalvo was here, here to strike down and destroy those whom she loved,
and triple armed with power, authority, and desire to do the deed. Well
she knew that when there was plunder to be won, he would not step aside
or soften until it was in his hands. Yet there was hope in this; he was
not a cruel man, as she knew also, that is to say, he had no pleasure
in inflicting suffering for its own sake; such methods he used only as a
means to an end. If he could get the money, all of it, she was sure that
he would leave them alone. Why should he not have it? Why should all
their lives be menaced because of this trust which had been thrust upon
them?

Unable to endure the torments of her doubts and fears, Lysbeth woke her
husband, who was sleeping peacefully at her side, and told him what was
passing in her mind.

"It is a true saying," answered Dirk with a smile, "that even the best
of women are never quite honest when their interest pulls the other way.
What, wife, would you have us buy our own peace with Brant's fortune,
and thus break faith with a dead man and bring down his curse upon us?"

"The lives of men are more than gold, and Elsa would consent," she
answered sullenly; "already this pelf is stained with blood, the blood
of Hendrik Brant himself, and of Hans the pilot."

"Yes, wife, and since you mention it, with the blood of a good many
Spaniards also, who tried to steal the stuff. Let's see; there must have
been several drowned at the mouth of the river, and quite twenty went
up with the _Swallow_, so the loss has not been all on our side. Listen,
Lysbeth, listen. It was my cousin, Hendrik Brant's, belief that in the
end this great fortune of his would do some service to our people or our
country, for he wrote as much in his will and repeated it to Foy. I know
not when or in what fashion this may come about; how can I know? But
first will I die before I hand it over to the Spaniard. Moreover, I