nto which,
foreseeing troublous days, from time to time Brant had converted the
most of his vast wealth. Now in one glittering stream of red and white
and blue and green, breaking from their cases and wrappings that the
damp had rotted, save for those pearls, the most valuable of them all,
which were in the watertight copper box--they fell jingling to the open
floor, where they rolled hither and thither like beans shot from a sack
in the steading.

"I think there is only this one tub of jewels," said Foy quietly; "the
rest, which are much heavier, are full of gold coin. Here, sir, is the
inventory so that you may check the list and see that we have kept back
nothing."

But William of Orange heeded him not, only he looked at the priceless
gems and muttered, "Fleets of ships, armies of men, convoys of food,
means to bribe the great and buy goodwill--aye, and the Netherlands
themselves wrung from the grip of Spain, the Netherlands free and rich
and happy! O God! I thank Thee Who thus hast moved the hearts of men to
the salvation of this Thy people from sore danger."

Then in the sudden ecstasy of relief and joy, the great Prince hid his
face in his hands and wept.

Thus it came about that the riches of Hendrik Brant, when Leyden lay
at her last gasp, paid the soldiers and built the fleets which, in
due time, driven by a great wind sent suddenly from heaven across
the flooded meadows, raised the dreadful siege and signed the doom of
Spanish rule in Holland. Therefore it would seem that not in vain was
Hendrik Brant stubborn and foresighted, that his blood and the blood
of Dirk van Goorl were not shed in vain; that not in vain also did
Elsa suffer the worst torments of a woman's fear in the Red Mill on the
marshes; and Foy and Martin play their parts like men in the shot-tower,
the Gevangenhuis and the siege, and Mother Martha the Sword find a grave
and rest in the waters of the Haarlem Meer.

There are other morals to this story also, applicable, perhaps, to our
life to-day, but the reader is left to guess them.

_Scene the Second_

Leyden is safe at last, and through the broken dykes Foy and Martin,
with the rescuing ships, have sailed, shouting and red-handed, into her
famine-stricken streets. For the Spaniards, those that are left of them,
are broken and have fled away from their forts and flooded trenches.

So the scene changes from warring, blood-stained, triumphant Holland to
the quiet city of Norwich