nt
position seemed to bring vividly before his mind the picture of that
afternoon in the "Lame Cow" at Haarlem, when the knave whom he had paid
to keep Gilda safely out of the way was bargaining with his father to
bring her back to him.

All the hatred of the past few days--momentarily lulled in the face of a
tragedy--rose up once more with renewed intensity in his heart. Here was
the man who had betrayed him, and who, triumphant, was about to take
Gilda back to Haarlem and receive a fortune for his reward.

While Heemskerk, doubtful and hesitating, marvelled if 'twere wise to
take up Stoutenburg's private quarrels rather than follow his other
friends to Scheveningen where safety lay, Jan and Beresteyn vigorously
aided by Stoutenburg made a concerted attack upon the knave.

But it seemed as easy for Bucephalus to deal with three blades as with
one: now it appeared to have three tongues of pale grey flame that
flashed hither and thither;--backwards, forwards, left, right, above,
below, parry, riposte, an occasional thrust, and always quietly on
guard.

Diogenes was in his greatest humour laughing and shouting with glee. To
anyone less blind with excitement than were these men it would soon
have been clear that he was shouting for the sole purpose of making a
noise, a noise louder than the hammerings, the jinglings, the knocking
that was going on at the back of the hut.

To right and left of the front of the small building a high wooden
paling ran for a distance of an hundred paces or so enclosing a rough
yard with a shed in the rear. It was impossible to see over the palings
what was going on behind them and so loudly did the philosopher shout
and laugh, and so vigorously did steel strike against steel that it was
equally impossible to perceive the sounds that came from there.

But suddenly Stoutenburg was on the alert: something had caught his ear,
a sound that rose above the din that was going on in the doorway ... a
woman's piercing shriek. Even the clang of steel could not drown it, nor
the lusty shouts of the fighting philosopher.

For a second he strained his ear to listen. It seemed as if invisible
hands were suddenly tearing down the wooden palisade that hid the rear
of the small building from his view; before his mental vision a whole
picture rose to sight. A window at the back of the hut broken in, Gilda
carried away by the friends of this accursed adventurer--Jan had said
that two came to his aid at th