uence over him had been paramount, through it he had
lost all sense of justice, of honour and of loyalty; banded with
murderers he had ceased to recognize the very existence of honesty, and
now he was in such a plight morally, that though he knew himself to be
playing an ignoble role, he did not see the way to throw up the part and
to take up that of an honest man. One word from him to Gilda, his frank
confession of his own guilt, and she would so know how to plead for the
condemned man that Stoutenburg would not dare to proceed with this
monstrous act.

But that word he had not the courage to speak.

With dull eyes and in sullen silence he watched Piet the Red untying
under Jan's orders the ropes which held the prisoner to the beam, and
then securing others to keep his arms pinioned behind his back. The mist
now was of a faint silvery grey, and the objects around had that
mysterious hushed air which the dawn alone can lend. The men, attracted
by the sight of a fellow creature in his last living moments, had
gathered together in close knots of threes and fours. They stood by,
glowering and sombre, and had not Jan turned a wilfully deaf ear to
their murmurings he would have heard many an ugly word spoken under
their breath.

These were of course troublous and fighting times, when every man's hand
was against some other, when every able-bodied man was firstly a soldier
and then only a peaceable citizen. Nor was the present situation an
uncommon one: the men could not know what the prisoner had done to
deserve this summary punishment. He might have been a spy--an
informer--or merely a prisoner of war. It was no soldier's place to
interfere, only to obey orders and to ask no questions.

But they gave to the splendid personality of the condemned man the
tribute of respectful silence. Whilst Jan secured the slender white
hands of the prisoner, and generally made those awful preparations which
even so simple a death as hanging doth demand, jests and oaths were
stilled one by one among these rough fighting men, not one head but was
uncovered, not a back that was not straightened, not an attitude that
was not one of deference and attention. Instinct--that unerring instinct
of the soldier--had told them that here was no scamp getting his just
reward, but a brave man going with a careless smile to his death.

"Has mynheer finished with the prisoner," asked Jan when he saw that
Piet had finished his task and that the prisoner