s too has his work cut out. General in command of the
forces--foreign mercenaries and louts from the country--he has Jan for
able captain. The mercenaries and the louts know nothing yet of what
will happen to-morrow--when once the dawn has broken--but they are well
prepared; like beasts of the desert they can scent blood in the air;
look at them polishing up their swords and cleaning their cullivers!
they know that to-morrow they will fight, even though to-night they have
had no orders save to see that one prisoner tied with ropes to a beam
and fainting with exposure and loss of blood does not contrive to
escape.

But the Lord of Stoutenburg is more wakeful than all. Like a caged beast
of prey he paces up and down the low, narrow weighing-room of the
molens, his hands tightly clenched behind his back, his head bare, his
cloak cast aside despite the bitter coldness of the night.

Restless and like a beast of prey; his nostrils quiver with the lust of
hate and revenge that seethes within his soul. Two men doth he hate with
a consuming passion of hatred, the Stadtholder Prince of Orange,
sovereign ruler of half the Netherlands, and a penniless adventurer
whose very name is unknown.

Both these men are now in the power of the Lord of Stoutenburg. The
bridge is prepared, the powder laid, to-morrow justice will be meted out
to the tyrant; God alone could save him now, and God, of a surety, must
be on the side of a just revenge. The other man is helpless and a
prisoner; despite his swagger and his insolence, justice shall be meted
out to him too; God alone could save him, and God, of a surety, could
not be on the side of an impudent rogue.

These thoughts, which were as satisfying to the Lord of Stoutenburg as
food placed at an unattainable distance is to a starving beast, kept him
awake and pacing up and down the room after he had finished his work
under the bridge.

He could not sleep for thinking of the prisoner, of the man's insolence,
of the humiliation and contempt wherewith every glance he had brought
shame to his cheeks. The Lord of Stoutenburg could not sleep also for
thinking of Gilda, and the tender, pitying eyes wherewith she regarded
the prisoner, the gentle tone of her voice when she spoke to him, even
after proof had been placed before her that the man was a forger and a
thief.

The Lord of Stoutenburg could not sleep and all the demons of jealousy,
of hatred and of revenge were chasing him up and down th