is a strange argument to find in your mouth, cousin, the argument
of Caiaphas the Jew."

"Nay, Lysbeth, be not wroth with me, for what can I say? The Spanish
troops in Leyden are not many, it is true, but more have been sent for
from Haarlem and elsewhere after the troubles of yesterday arising
out of the capture of Foy and Martin, and in forty-eight hours at the
longest they will be here. This town is not provisioned for a siege,
its citizens are not trained to arms, and we have little powder stored.
Moreover, the city council is divided. For the killing of the Spanish
soldiers we may compound, but if we attack the Gevangenhuis, that is
open rebellion, and we shall bring the army of Don Frederic down upon
us."

"What matter, cousin? It will come sooner or later."

"Then let it come later, when we are more prepared to beat it off. Oh!
do not reproach me, for I can bear it ill, I who am working day and
night to make ready for the hour of trial. I love your husband and your
son, my heart bleeds for your sorrow and their doom, but at present
I can do nothing, nothing. You must bear your burden, they must bear
theirs, I must bear mine; we must all wander through the night not
knowing where we wander till God causes the dawn to break, the dawn of
freedom and retribution."

Lysbeth made no answer, only she rose and stumbled from the house, while
van de Werff sat down groaning bitterly and praying for help and light.

CHAPTER XXII

A MEETING AND A PARTING

Lysbeth did not sleep that night, for even if her misery would have let
her sleep, she could not because of the physical fire that burnt in her
veins, and the strange pangs of agony which pierced her head. At first
she thought little of them, but when at last the cold light of the
autumn morning dawned she went to a mirror and examined herself, and
there upon her neck she found a hard red swelling of the size of a nut.
Then Lysbeth knew that she had caught the plague from the Vrouw Jansen,
and laughed aloud, a dreary little laugh, since if all she loved were
to die, it seemed to her good that she should die also. Elsa was abed
prostrated with grief, and, shutting herself in her room, Lysbeth
suffered none to come near her except one woman who she knew had
recovered from the plague in past years, but even to her she said
nothing of her sickness.

About eleven o'clock in the morning this woman rushed into her chamber
crying, "They have escaped! They have escaped!