ears ago, in this
very room, after you had bought me at the cost of Dirk's life, certain
words I spoke to you? Now I do not think that it was I who spoke, Juan
de Montalvo."

And she swept past him and though the wide doorway.

Red Martin stood upon the balcony gripping the man Ramiro. Beneath him
the broad street was packed with people, hundreds and thousands of them,
a dense mass seething in the shadows, save here and again where a torch
or a lantern flared showing their white faces, for the moon, which
shone upon Martin and his captive, scarcely reached those down below. As
gaunt, haggard, and long-haired, he stepped upon the balcony, they saw
him and his burden, and there went up such a yell as shook the very
roofs of Leyden. Martin held up his hand, and there was silence, deep
silence, through which the breath of all that multitude rose in sighs,
like the sighing of a little wind.

"Citizens my Leyden, my masters," the Frisian cried, in a great, deep
voice that echoed down the street, "I have a word to say to you. This
man here--do you know him?"

Back came an answering yell of "_Aye!_"

"He is a Spaniard," went on Martin, "the noble Count Juan de Montalvo,
who many years past forced one Lysbeth van Hout of this city into a
false marriage, buying her at the price of the life of her affianced
husband, Dirk van Goorl, that he might win her fortune."

"We know it," they shouted.

"Afterwards he was sent to the galleys for his crimes. He came back,
and was made Governor of the Gevangenhuis by the bloody Alva, where
he brought to death your brother and past burgomaster, Dirk van Goorl.
Afterwards he kidnapped the person of Elsa Brant, the daughter of
Hendrik Brant, whom the Inquisition murdered at The Hague. We rescued
her from him, my master, Foy van Goorl, and I. Afterwards he served
with the Spaniards as a captain of their forces in the siege of Haarlem
yonder--Haarlem that fell three days ago, and whose citizens they are
murdering to-night, throwing them two by two to drown in the waters of
the Mere."

"Kill him! Cast him down!" roared the mob. "Give him to us, Red Martin."

Again the Frisian lifted his hand and again there was silence; a sudden,
terrible silence.

"This man had a son; my mistress, Lysbeth van Goorl, to her shame and
sorrow, was the mother of him. That son, repenting, saved us from the
sack of Haarlem, yea, through him the three of us, Foy van Goorl, Elsa
Brant, and I, Martin Roos,