ld him of your masterful doings, of your imprisoning Gerard
for loving a girl; and says he, 'Tell him this is to be a king, not
a burgomaster. I'll have no kings in Holland but one. Bid him be more
humble, or I'll hang him at his own door,'"

(Ghysbrecht trembled: he thought the duke capable of the deed)

"'as I hanged the burgomaster of Thingembob.' The duke could not mind
which of you he had hung, or in what part; such trifles stick not in a
soldier's memory; but he was sure he had hanged one of you for grinding
poor folk, 'and I'm the man to hang another,' quoth the good duke."

These repeated insults from so mean a man, coupled with his
invulnerability, shielded as he was by the duke, drove the choleric old
man into a fit of impotent fury: he shook his fist at the soldier,
and tried to threaten him, but could not speak for the rage and
mortification that choked him: then he gave a sort of screech, and
coiled himself up in eye and form like a rattlesnake about to strike;
and spat furiously upon Martin's doublet.

The thick-skinned soldier treated this ebullition with genuine contempt.
"Here's a venomous old toad! he knows a kick from his foot would send
him to his last home; and he wants me to cheat the gallows. But I have
slain too many men in fair fight to lift limb against anything less than
a man; and this I count no man. What is it, in Heaven's name? an old
goat's-skin bag full o' rotten bones."

"My mule! my mule!" screamed Ghysbrecht.

Jorian helped the old man up trembling in every joint. Once in the
saddle, he seemed to gather in a moment unnatural vigour; and the figure
that went flying to Tergou was truly weird-like and terrible: so old and
wizened the face; so white and reverend the streaming hair; so baleful
the eye; so fierce the fury which shook the bent frame that went
spurring like mad; while the quavering voice yelled, "I'll make their
hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache.
I'll make their hearts ache. All of them. All!--all!--all!"

The black sheep sat disconsolate amidst the convivial crew, and eyed
Hans Memling's wallet. For more ease he had taken it off, and flung it
on the table. How readily they could have slipped out that letter and
put in another. For the first time in their lives they were sorry they
had not learned to write, like their brother.

And now Hans began to talk of going, and the brothers agreed in a
whisper to abandon their project for t