ouble to come and warn them yonder in Leyden, thereby giving them time
to make a very good defence in the shot tower.

Foy looked up at his brother. Adrian was dressed in the uniform of a
Spanish officer, with a breast-plate over his quilted doublet, and a
steel cap, from the front of which rose a frayed and weather-worn plume
of feathers. The face had changed; there was none of the old pomposity
about those handsome features; it looked worn and cowed, like that of an
animal which has been trained to do tricks by hunger and the use of the
whip. Yet, through all the shame and degradation, Foy seemed to catch
the glint of some kind of light, a light of good desire shining behind
that piteous mask, as the sun sometimes shines through a sullen cloud.
Could it be that Adrian was not quite so bad after all? That he was,
in fact, the Adrian that he, Foy, had always believed him to be, vain,
silly, passionate, exaggerated, born to be a tool and think himself
the master, but beneath everything, well-meaning? Who could say? At the
worst, too, was it not better that Elsa should become the wife of Adrian
than that her life should cease there and then, and by her lover's hand?

These things passed through his brain as the lightning passes through
the sky. In an instant his mind was made up and Foy flung down his sword
at the feet of a soldier. As he did so his eyes met the eyes of Adrian,
and to his imagination they seemed to be full of thanks and promise.

They took them all; with gibes and blows the soldiers haled them away
through the tumult and the agony of the fallen town and its doomed
defenders. Out of the rich sunlight they led them into a house that
still stood not greatly harmed by the cannon-shot, but a little way
from the shattered Ravelin and the gate which had been the scene of such
fearful conflict--a house that was the home of one of the wealthiest
merchants in Haarlem. Here Foy and Elsa were parted. She struggled to
his arms, whence they tore her and dragged her away up the stairs, but
Martin, Martha and Foy were thrust into a dark cellar, locked in and
left.

A while later the door of the cellar was unbarred and some hand, they
could not see whose, passed through it water and food, good food such as
they had not tasted for months; meat and bread and dried herrings, more
than they could eat of them.

"Perhaps it is poisoned," said Foy, smelling at it hungrily.

"What need to take the trouble to poison us?" answ