d Stoutenburg with exultant joy.

"He was alone, my lord," replied Jan with a placid smile, "and there
were seven of us at the time. Two or three of the men, though, are even
now nursing unpleasant wounds. I myself fared rather badly with a
bruised head and half-broken collar-bone.... The man is a demon for
fighting, but there were seven of us."

"Well done, Jan!" cried Beresteyn now, for Stoutenburg had become
speechless with the delight of this glorious news; "and what did you do
with the rogue?"

"We tied him securely with ropes and dragged him along with us. Oh! we
made certain of him, my lord, you may be sure of that. And now I and
another man have taken him down into the basement below and we have
fastened him to one of the beams, where I imagine the north-west wind
will soon cool his temper."

"Aye, that it will!" quoth Stoutenburg lustily. "Take the lanthorn, Jan,
and let us to him at once. Beresteyn, friend, will you come too? Your
hand like mine must be itching to get at the villain's face."

The two men took good care to wrap their cloaks well round their

shoulders and to pull their fur caps closely round their ears. Thus
muffled up against the bitterness of the night, they went out of the
molens, followed by Jan, who carried the lanthorn.

Outside the door, steep, ladder-like steps led to the ground. The place
referred to by Jan as "the basement" was in reality the skeleton
foundations on which the molens rested. These were made up of huge
beams--green and slimy with age, and driven deep down into the muddy
flat below. Ten feet up above, the floor of the molens sat towering
aloft. Darkness like pitch reigned on this spot, but as Jan swung his
lanthorn along, the solid beams detached themselves one by one out of
the gloom, their ice-covered surface reflected the yellow artificial
light, and huge icicles of weird and fantastic shapes like giant arms
and fingers stretched out hung down from the transverse bars and from
the wooden framework of the molens above.

To one of the upright beams a man was securely fastened with ropes wound
round about his body. His powerful muscles were straining against the
cords which tied his arms behind his back. A compassionate hand had put
his broad-brimmed hat upon his head, to protect his ears and nose
against the frost, but his mighty chest was bare, for doublet and shirt
had been torn in the reckless fight which preceded final capture.

Jan held up the lanthorn an