is done, then, and not before, think of peace and love.

"Nay, children, look not so fearful, for I, the mad mere-wife, tell you,
by the Grace of God, that you have naught to fear. Who preserved you in
the torture den, Foy van Goorl? What hand was it that held your life and
honour safe when you sojourned among devils in the Red Mill yonder and
kept your head above the waters of the flood, Elsa Brant? You know well,
and I, Martha, tell you that this same hand shall hold you safe until
the end. Yes, I know it, I know it; thousands shall fall upon your right
hand and tens of thousands upon your left, but you shall live through
the hunger; the arrows of pestilence shall pass you by, the sword of
the wicked shall not harm you. For me it is otherwise, at length my doom
draws near and I am well content; but for you twain, Foy and Elsa, I
foretell many years of earthly joy."

Thus spoke Martha, and it seemed to those who watched her that her wild,
disfigured face shone with a light of inspiration, nor did they who knew
her story, and still believed that the spirit of prophecy could open the
eyes of chosen seers, deem it strange that vision of the things to be
should visit her. At the least they took comfort from her words, and for
a while were no more afraid.

Yet they had much to fear. By a fateful accident they had been delivered
from great dangers only to fall into dangers greater still, for as it
chanced, on this tenth of December, 1572, they sailed straight into the
grasp of the thousands of the Spanish armies which had been drawn like
a net round the doomed city of Haarlem. There was no escape for them;
nothing that had not wings could pass those lines of ships and soldiers.
Their only refuge was the city, and in that city they must bide till the
struggle, one of the most fearful of all that hideous war, was ended.
But at least they had this comfort, they would face the foe together,
and with them were two who loved them, Martha, the "Spanish Scourge,"
and Red Martin, the free Frisian, the mighty man of war whom God had
appointed to them as a shield of defence.

So they smiled on each other, these two lovers of long ago, and sailed
bravely on to the closing gates of Haarlem.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ATONEMENT

Seven months had gone by, seven of the most dreadful months ever lived
through by human beings. For all this space of time, through the frosts
and snows and fogs of winter, through the icy winds of spring, and n