It was the hour of sunset when he returned to the convent; he expected

there to find his brother, for whom he had repeatedly asked, but whom he

had not seen since the battle.

He believed that Adolphus must have gone in pursuit of Braccamonte's

flying battalions. With a sigh of fatigue he took off his casque and

gloves and called for water and for his page to unbuckle his armour.

"Where is the Count Adolphus?" he asked again, looking round him.

The officers who filled the chamber were silent; then one of them drew

Louis to the door of an inner room which had been a monk's cell.

This little apartment was flooded with light which poured through the

dancing green branches of the fruit trees without and was musical with

the evening song of birds.

The only furniture was a chair, a table, and a bed.

On the chair was a splendid stained sword, on the table a black casque

with a flame-like plume, and on the bed something wrapped in the banner

with the Nassau device which had waved that morning at the head of

Adolphus' little troop of horse.

Louis could read quite plainly the words, "_Nunc aut nunquam, recuperare

aut mori_,"—they were slightly sprinkled with blood.

And at the bottom of the bed the banner lifted, showing the soles of two

mailed feet.

For a moment Louis felt his courage and strength leave him; he leant

against the door-lintel as weak as a sick girl.

Then, "He is dead," he said; "why was I not told?" and with a firm step

he approached the bed, and turned back the silk fold of the banner.

The young man lay with his head turned towards the wall. Aremberg's

sword, cutting through steel and leather, had cloven the fair curls and

the youthful forehead an inch deep; the reverently placed linen bandage

was crimson with blood, and the long locks were clotted and tangled; the

lips were strained into what seemed a stern smile, and the head had

fallen so that the chin was raised haughtily. The orange scarf was

pierced by a bullet that had entered under the edge of the cuirass,

above this wound the young warrior's fine hands had been crossed.

Louis gazed long and earnestly, recalling every word of the youth's

speech last night, every gesture, recalling his last embrace that

morning—and the victory, bought with this dear blood, became as nothing

to Louis of Nassau.

The first toll had been paid; very early in the fight had it been

exacted; with the first crossing of swords a Nassau had laid down his

life.

Louis bowed his head as he replaced the banner fold over the dead

features, and his eyes swelled and burnt with tears.

Two of Adolphus' officers came softly forward now, gathering courage to

speak.

"It was the Stadtholder slew His Excellency—they came together through

all their troop—the Count fell, very valiantly wounded, at the first

onslaught—his two esquires were shot by Count Aremberg also."

"We brought him here," added the other, "not to disturb your lordship

with grief until the fight was over."

Louis did not answer; he stood heavily, looking at the straight outline

beneath the banner and thinking of the gallant figure who had kissed him

that morning before the battle, and of the Prince at Cleves and the

women at Dillenburg waiting for news, to whom would come this news—this

and the news from Juliers which Adolphus had never known.

Barren and small seemed his victory to Louis, and heavy and mysterious

the ways of God.

He left the little chamber, closing the door gently as if he feared to

disturb his brother's solemn sleep, and went out into the still garden,

now flushed rosy from the setting sun.

There against the wall leant a miserable figure, Duprès the skryer.

He glanced furtively and fearfully at Louis, yet with a pleading look

like a dog waiting to be called.

Louis started at sight of him.

"Ah, you!" he exclaimed; "one of your prophecies has been fulfilled!"

Duprès abased himself before the young general.

"I knew," he said humbly. "But, seigneur, I never told him—I saw one

star fall for Count Aremberg and one for _him_—but _he_ knew without my

words."

"Yes, I think he knew," replied Louis; he looked keenly at the

half-starved, ragged figure of the refugee. "And when shall I join him,

wise fellow?"

Duprès crouched away.

"The contest will outlast all the warriors," he muttered, "and your

horoscope is more dreadful than his—but how do I know? I cannot read the

heavens as I could!"

"There is no need to look in the heavens for my portents," said Louis,

as if speaking to himself, "they are blazed abroad before the eyes of

men very clearly."

The golden dusk faded and darkness closed over Heiliger Lee, soft clouds

passed over the setting sun which pierced them with level rays like

spears; the dead men in the morass were hidden, the moving light of

lanterns crossed and recrossed the victorious camp.

A mist, white and trembling, rose from the swamp and obscured the

roadway; the young trees in the forest, shivered and faded to a dark hue

against the last pearly glow of the west.

The birds were silent in the fruit garden, and all the flowers were

closed away and hidden in the night.

Count Aremberg lay lonely with a crucifix on his breast and his cloak

folded straight; but throughout the night Louis kept company with his

brother, kneeling on the boards beside his bed and wetting the

blood-stained banner with his tears, while the heads of the two young

warriors, still so alike, rested for the last time on the same pillow,

touched, for the last time, cheek to cheek and lip to lip.

CHAPTER V

NEWS FROM THE NETHERLANDS

The news of the dear-bought victory of Heiliger Lee was late in coming

to Dillenburg; it was soon followed by the tale of the complete rout and

loss of the third party of the invaders, who had invaded Artois under

the Seigneur de Cocqueville. He and his entire force had been cut down

at St. Valéry, and the survivors of the defeat had been instantly

hanged.

From Brussels, too, came other news, as disastrous as sad. Alva's wrath

had found a swift vent; the impudence of the "master beggars," as Meghem

had called them, who had dared to defeat Alva's veteran troops and slay

his general, was cruelly revenged on those in Alva's power who were

suspected of sympathy with the rebels.

The members of the House of Nassau and their adherents were banished on

pain of death, and their property confiscated.

On the ruins of the Culemburg Palace, which he had burnt to the ground,

was erected a pillar commemorating the hatching and overthrow of the

"beggar" conspiracy which had begun at the famous banquet held between

their walls; and before this desolated spot, eighteen nobles and

gentlemen were publicly executed, their heads and bodies afterwards

being fastened to stakes and left to moulder on the horse market.

And a few days later Egmont and Hoorne were brought to Brussels, and

Alva filled in the blank death-warrants signed by Philip and brought

from Spain, with the names of two of the most illustrious men in the

Netherlands and the most obstinately loyal to Spain of all those

Netherland nobles who had hated Granvelle and served Philip.

And on the sixth day of June the most awful blow yet struck at the

Netherlands fell, and Lamoral Egmont, Prince of Gravern, Stadtholder of

Flanders, victor of St. Quentin and Gravelines, and Philip Montmorency,

Count Hoorne and High Admiral, both councillors of the Netherlands and

Knights of the Golden Fleece, were publicly executed in the great square

at Brussels.

The whole country shuddered to the heart, and the hatred of Alva grew to

a passion and a fury.

There came other news to Dillenburg, to agonize Count John and the

waiting women there—news of more obscure victims. A lady and her servant

who two years before had struck an image of the Virgin with a slipper

were drowned by the hangman in a hogshead on the scaffold; a Lutheran

who had died in prison was dragged to the place of execution and

beheaded with his companions; people were arrested by the tens, the

fifties, the hundreds, and put to death without trial.

Flight was no longer possible, as the ports were closed against

heretics; trade was at a standstill, commerce at an end; all industries

were destroyed, agriculture ruined; the rich properties had been all

confiscated or plundered by Noircarmes, Meghem, and their followers.

The great nobles had perished or were in exile, and the nation lay

stunned and bleeding before her slaughterers.

In every town, in every village, new scaffolds were built, new fires

lit; in every field and orchard the festering bodies hung; on every high

road wandered destitute, half-crazed survivors, homeless and bereaved.

The death-bell was now the only music in a land once given to merriment,

and the only dancing that of the dead swinging and shaking in their

chains on gibbets, stakes, and trees; the great squares of the great

cities, once worn smooth by the passing of thousands of busy feet, were

now covered with rank grass and weeds, which were only disturbed by the

tramp of the soldiery or the feeble steps of some half-starving wretches

creeping into hiding.

Only the churches remained wealthy amid the poverty, only the priests

and the Spaniards remained gorged and fat among the miserable and

ruined; for while Netherland blood watered Netherland earth, Netherland

gold streamed into Spanish pockets.

So had the Duke of Alva redeemed his boast that he would "tame these men

of butter." So with the sword, the fire, the rope, the axe, he strove to

uproot and destroy the seed Martin Luther had planted too deep for any

man's uprooting and destroying.

The messenger who brought the news of the Artois disaster to Count John,

and also dispatches from William, who was holding his position as well

as was possible, was Francis Junius, the young minister who had preached

in the now destroyed Culemburg palace on Parma's wedding day.

This man, who was absolutely without fear (on one occasion he had

preached in a room lit by the flames of fellow-heretics perishing at the

stake without), had been in Brussels, and had actually mingled with the

crowd that had been a horrified witness of the death of Hoorne and

Egmont.

Then, after wandering through the desolate country and administering

such comfort as he was able to the persecuted people, he had joined

William at Cleves and, by him, been sent to Dillenburg.

When Junius had left Count John, Juliana of Stolberg sent for him.

He found her in a quiet room of the castle with her three daughters,

Anne of Saxony, the Countess of Hoogstraaten, and several of her women.

The chamber was hung with worsted tapestry in sombre and faded hues;

against this background the group of women, all in the dull black of

mourning, with black caps on their fair hair and white ruffs surrounding

their fair faces, made a startling picture. She in the deepest mourning

of all was Hoogstraaten's wife; her dress was dull, without a touch even

of white, for the Countess Hoogstraaten was the sister of Count Hoorne.

She was seated next the Countess van der Berg, and the two were

embroidering a child's dress with white and black thread.

The Princess of Orange, pale and haggard in the bitter black robes,

played with a little white dog that lay on her knee; Rénèe, also in

mourning, sat on a low stool beside her mistress.

Francis Junius was also in a plain black gown a little worn and rusty,

and a linen band without lace.

He was not discomposed by the presence of all these great ladies, but

saluted them with the civil calm that was his habitual manner.

The Countess of Nassau rose and received him with a sweet courtesy.

"You come from my son," she said, as she set him a chair with her own

hands, "from the Prince of Orange? If you are not fatigued, I would hear

some news of him."

The slim young minister sat gravely facing the semicircle of ladies; his

worn and hollow face bore traces of disease and anxiety, but was

animated with ardour and enthusiasm.

"The Prince is very well, gracious Madame, and bore most valiantly the

grievous news. He is engaged in raising fresh levies for another attempt

on the Netherlands. He sends these letters to your princely self and to

Her Highness his wife."

With movements as precise as his words he delivered the letters to the

ladies. The Countess slipped hers into the bosom of her dress; the

Princess's letter remained on her lap, on the back of the little dog.

Francis Junius kept a reserved silence, as if waiting his dismissal,

while the young women whose husbands and brothers were fighting in the

cause he preached gazed at him with wide eyes of sympathy and awe.

But Juliana of Stolberg wished to hear more of that country where now

all her interests were so passionately centred.

"Tell us," she said, with a sad, gentle earnestness, "of the

Netherlands."

The preacher flushed and started from his abstraction.

"Of the Netherlands?" he repeated. "Alas, I have seen nothing in the

Netherlands you or any lady would care to hear."

"Do you think we are so weak-hearted?" smiled the Countess, pointing to

the mourning of all. "What we have endured and what we must endure, our

thoughts and our anxieties, serve to steel us."

Her lips trembled and she put out her hand to clasp the sympathetic hand

of her daughter Catherine, which crept on to her knee.

"Did you see my son Adolphus before he died?" she asked in a firmer

voice.

"No, Madame—but I have heard of the great honour he had in his death.

And I heard that the Count Louis was doing very wonderfully and

resolutely with his little means."

"He had always a high, hopeful heart," replied the Countess, "and a very

gallant way of cheerfulness. God grant that it be not overthrown nor

dimmed."

"The House of Nassau," said the preacher, "is greatly blessed by all the

poor people of these unhappy provinces—in that noble name alone," he

added, with reverence, "they place their hopes."

"My sons can do much, not everything," answered Juliana of Stolberg.

"The people too are valiant and patient, and fearful of God—give credit

to the people and to such men as yourself, sir."

"I?" he exclaimed, in genuine astonishment. "I am as helpless before

Alva as a straw before the wind!"

Hoogstraaten's wife spoke; her voice was grave, in tone like that of the

Admiral, her brother.

"But you have been in great peril, there is a price on your head, and

yet you stayed?"

"Ah, that, yes," he admitted simply, as if these things were a matter of

course.

"Why did you stay?" asked Catherine van der Berg earnestly.

"It was the land where I was sent to labour, Madame, and perhaps I have

been some use—to comfort one on his way to martyrdom, to console the

bereaved, to utter a prayer over an unconsecrated grave, to encourage

the soldiers of Prince William."

His expression became sad and thoughtful, and he bent his head as if it

was heavy.

"It is all one can do," he added wistfully.

"It is enough," said Juliana of Stolberg. "God has guided your steps

that you have come safely through such dangers."

Junius did not reply; he knew that he was doomed sooner or later to the

torture and the stake, for he did not falter from his determination to

continue his simple and heroic ministrations in the Netherlands.

"You saw the executions in Brussels?" asked Lenore Hoogstraaten in a low

tone. "You saw Count Egmont die? And the Admiral?"

"Yes," replied the minister. "He died bravely in his mistaken faith and

his mistaken loyalty."

Countess van der Berg had known the brilliant Egmont in the old glorious

days, and she asked with a fearful curiosity after the last moments of

that unfortunate grandee, looking tearfully the while at Hoorne's sad

sister.

Junius answered in a low voice, quietly giving his impressions of that

last scene as he had witnessed it from the crowd. He was not greatly

moved by what he recited; his fiery, single-minded piety had never had

anything but contempt for such as Egmont, and he had seen more horrible

things by far than the death of that nobleman.

"He came walking very composedly. The scaffold was covered with black

cloth, with two black velvet cushions. There were Spanish soldiers

round, three thousand of them. I think there were great fears of a

rescue. It was hot weather, and the Count came about midday, when the

sun was strong; he had asked, I heard, that he might die first. I was

close enough to see him quite clearly. His hair was almost white, and he

looked very tall; he wore a crimson velvet robe with a black velvet

cape, and underneath one could see the badge of the Golden Fleece and

his doublet cut away about the neck—by his own hand, I think.

"He made no speech, but walked up and down twisting a handkerchief in

his hand. He seemed very passionate, and showed rage and despair,

asking, I believe, to the very last if there was not to be a pardon.

"He disarranged himself and took off the badge of the Fleece, kissed the

crucifix the Bishop of Yprès gave him, and knelt.

"The Spanish captain gave a signal, and I saw the executioner spring out

from under the scaffold cloth, and it was over very swiftly."

The women remained pale and silent, only Hoogstraaten's wife asked, "And

Hoorne—my brother?"

"The Admiral was more unmoved. He was all in black, and conducted

himself without passion save when he saw his escutcheon hanging reversed

on the scaffold, when he protested hotly. He looked on the body of

Egmont, then wished the crowd happiness, and begged them to pray for his

soul—which I, for one, have done," added Junius simply. "He was not wept

for like Count Egmont, but I think he was the better man."

"He lived, and died, gloomily," said the Countess Hoogstraaten. "He had

no joy in wife or child. I wish I had been with him at the end."

"Even in his coffin he was lonely," answered Junius He lay in Ste

Gudule, and no one went near him; but when Egmont was in St. Clara you

could not move for the crowd weeping and praying. Yet, Madame,"—he

turned to Hoorne's sister,—"the Admiral will always have the greater

honour before God."

"And the Countess Egmont?" asked Juliana of Stolberg.

"She and her children were in the utmost poverty, for every thaler he

possessed was confiscate. The day of the execution they were supperless,

and fled to a convent. Alva, it was said," smiled the preacher,

"recommended them to Philip's charity."

The Nassau ladies exchanged commiserating glances, but Anne looked

coldly; the Countess of Egmont had always been an object of her dislike

and envy.

"It is a good lesson to one who was ever over-proud," she remarked.

These harsh words, the first that she had uttered since Junius entered

her presence, caused the preacher to look at her with a stern surprise.

"You think I am uncharitable?" commented Anne boldly, returning his gaze

with all her bitter, rebellious discontent unveiled in her heavy eyes.

"But I am one who has lost as much as Countess Egmont in this miserable

'beggar' war."

The Countess of Nassau gave her a look of austere reproach.

"Are you not ashamed to speak so, you who have a husband, a home, and

friends, while she is an outcast exile? Are you not ashamed to speak so

before the sister of Hoorne and Montigny?"

"My husband! My home! My friends!" muttered Anne, and she bent over the

little dog, clutching it till it yelped, and William's letter fell to

the ground.

Rénèe picked it up, the blood receding from her face as she touched the

inscription he had written, the wax and cord he had sealed, and her mind

pictured him in the midst of his pitiful little army, harassed with a

thousand cares, penning this letter to an unworthy woman.

Juliana of Stolberg turned again to the young preacher.

"You will stay with us a while at Dillenburg," she said, "and, after all

your labours, rest?"

He smiled at the idea that rest was any part of his life.

"Indeed I must return to the Netherlands," he answered. "I shall go back

to meet the Prince at Strasburg, and afterwards to the Provinces."

"It is to step into hell's mouth," said the Prince's mother, "but it is

so noble a resolve that I am ashamed to endeavour to dissuade you."

They talked a little longer about his work among the persecuted

Netherlanders, and then he left them to prepare himself for the service

he was to take that evening in the chapel.

When he had left a silence fell over the little group of black-clad

women; only Anne, who was like a firebrand of discord in that peaceful

household, was restless.

She threw the dog off her knee at last and limped fretfully about the

room; with feverish fingers she tore open the Prince's letter, then cast

it down.

The Countess noticed this and flushed.

"What have you read that displeases you?" she asked.

"What can I read that will please me?" flashed Anne. "What good news can

come from a man ruined by his own folly?"

"You speak of my son," returned the Countess, trembling.

"I speak of the man who has reduced me to beggary," cried the Princess

passionately. "And I will use my tongue as I list; it is you who do not

use the respect you should—all of you—little nobles that you are, to the

Elector Maurice's daughter."

The Countess rose.

"Had you been _my_ daughter, you had been better bred," she said, "and

learnt many a lesson at the rod's end. You may be finely born, but you

are foully trained, or else you are mad, God pity you! If you were not

my son's wife, I should have other things to say to you; since you are,

I beg you to stay apart from me, for my soul is too troubled to support

cursed humours."

Anne was silenced. The Countess, like William, could overawe her if she

chose. The Princess shuddered with suppressed passion and, as always

when defeated, hurried from the room.

The Countess seated herself, pale with distaste; such scenes as these,

and worse, were but too common now. Anne had threatened Count John with

a dinner-knife, and again and again wounded her attendants with any

weapon she could lay her hands on; Rénèe bore a bruise on her forehead

where the Princess had struck her with a wine-bottle.

"She is mad," said Magdalena, with the indignant frankness of youth.

"She should be put away; indeed she should."

"I think she is mad," admitted Rénèe slowly and humbly. She had so

completely assumed the burden of Anne's life that she felt as if Anne's

faults were her own; she rose now to follow the Princess.

"Stay here, you poor child," said the Countess of Nassau tenderly.

Rénèe thanked her affectionately, but hastened after her mistress.

She dared not leave Anne alone; it was always before her, a constant

terror, that Anne might escape to Cologne and utterly disgrace the

Prince; and she felt intensely the responsibility of being the only one

who knew how low Anne had descended, even in the days of her prosperity.

CHAPTER VI

THE PRINCE AT BAY

In that July, William moved to Strasburg, steadily and boldly preparing

his advance against the Spaniards, his daring inroad into the

Netherlands. He had now no allies save his brother Louis, who, in

desperate want of money, with mutinous troops, was using all his

brilliant audacity and resource to keep his men together in Friesland,

where his barren victory of Heiliger Lee had been followed by no fruits

save what little money he could wring from the Abbots of Wittewerum and

Heiliger Lee and the forced supplies obtained from the inhabitants of

the district.

And against this force of ill-disciplined, ill-fed, mutinous, and

ill-equipped troops, held together by one man's courage and influence,

Alva himself was marching with fifteen thousand of his veteran

regiments.

William, pressing forward his own preparations, using all his eloquence,

all his energy to raise new levies, to obtain money, hardly dared to

think of Louis awaiting the approach of Alva in the marshes of

Friesland.

He had heard of the entire failure of the two other expeditions he had

so carefully and adroitly planned, the utter annihilation of the forces

of De Cocqueville and De Villars, and he had received an even more cruel

blow in the news of the death of Adolphus; but in his own task he did

not hesitate for a moment in his strenuous preparations, nor in his

unfaltering endeavours.

He had now every one against him save his own family and a few faithful

friends, such as Hoogstraaten and Culemburg. The Emperor, at first

favourable to his enterprise, was now drawing closer in an alliance with

Spain, and ordered the Prince to abandon the cause of the Netherlands on

pain of forfeiting all his Imperial privileges and dignities; and the

German Princes, from whose alliance William had hoped so much, became

daily colder and colder in the cause of the unhappy Provinces.

And it was a cause that might seem indeed hopeless; so mighty and

terrible was Alva, so supine, so stifled, so exhausted, so crouching the

wretched people he had crushed beneath his armed feet and bound and

gagged with the chains and bits of the Holy Inquisition.

Since the executions of Egmont and Hoorne the heart of the country

seemed to cease to beat. Nowhere was any resistance made; the tyranny

was too extensive, the punishment too swift and universal.

The people, drained of blood and money, bowed to the new power, went to

mass, and feebly tried to pick up the threads of their former

occupations.

No one came forward to join Louis, and fewer and more timid became the

promises sent to the Prince.

He continued, however, to plan his own expedition as if all had been so

far successful instead of completely disastrous.

The continued campaign of Louis in Friesland was against his advice; he

wished his brother to fall back on Cleves instead of awaiting Alva's

coming.

He himself had brought his levies from Cleves to Strasburg, where he was

nearer the central Provinces and able to retreat into French territory

if need were. He had good hopes from the French Huguenots; he was still

on friendly territory, though far from Dillenburg and from Louis, whose

news reached him slowly, passing as it did from hand to hand by secret

agents across a country cowering under the Spanish rule. He was also on

the borders of the Palatinate, and the Elector Palatine was warmer in

the cause of the Netherlands than the Princes of Hesse or Saxony; the

Court of Heidelberg was indeed the sure refuge for any exiled

Protestant, and the stern Calvinist Frederic was moved by neither fear

of Philip's power nor tolerance towards his faith.

But his present encouragement to William was little more than good

wishes, for to him too the Provinces seemed lost.

It was in late July, when William was almost ready to take the field,

that a knight with a few attendants rode into Strasburg and demanded to

see the Prince of Orange.

He had no difficulty in obtaining his wish, for the German officers

recognized him as the Landgrave William, son of Philip of Hesse and

cousin to Anne of Saxony.

He found William and Count Hoogstraaten together in an upper chamber of

the modest house where they lodged.

It was a sultry night and the windows were wide open; between them sat

the Prince at a plain table writing by the light of a little copper

lamp.

He was writing to his wife, and the words he penned as the Landgrave

entered were these:—

* * * * *

"I go to-morrow, but when I shall return or when I shall see you I

cannot, on my honour, tell you with certainty. I have resolved to place

myself in the hands of the Almighty that He may guide me where it is His

good pleasure that I should go. I see well enough that I am destined to

pass this life in misery and labour——"

* * * * *

As he heard the door open, he closed his letter hastily and put it away.

As he rose to greet the Landgrave his eyes shone; he had a moment's hope

that Hesse was sending troops to his aid, or at least bringing promises

of future assistance.

Count Hoogstraaten also wore an eager look as he saluted the German

Prince.

But the appearance of the Landgrave was neither cheerful nor hopeful; he

seated himself heavily, took off his black silk hat, and wiped his

forehead.

"It is something important," said William quickly, "that has brought you

from Hesse here to seek my poor company."

"I came myself," returned the Landgrave, "because my father could think

of no better messenger. I have been at Dresden, and bear also the

messages of the Elector Augustus."

"Ah!" said William softly.

He seated himself and glanced at Hoogstraaten.

The Landgrave was a man of blunt words and a stern courtesy; without

preamble he came to what was the gist of his errand.

"Turn back—wait—leave the Provinces; it is impossible to assist them. No

one can withstand Alva and his army."

This was the sum of what the Landgrave William had ridden rapidly from

Hesse to say.

The argument was not new to William, already he had heard a great deal

of such discouragement; but perhaps it had never before been put to him

so weightily by so important a personage. He listened with his elbow on

the desk and his chin in his hand, his firm, small-featured profile

towards the speaker, his eyes cast down.

So plain was he, so modest were his appointments, that even the

unimaginative mind of the Landgrave contrasted him with the gorgeous

bridegroom who had come to Leipsic for his marriage seven years before.

"Have you not," he exclaimed, "sacrificed enough already? Are you not

sufficiently stripped?"

"I am," answered William, "greatly hampered for want of money."

"How much have you on this enterprise?" asked the Landgrave.

"Everything," said the Prince, "all I and my brothers and my friends

possess."

"Then you are ruined men!"

"If we fail, yes," admitted William.

"It is not possible that you can succeed."

"It is not possible to turn back," replied the Prince, not arrogantly

but rather gently.

"You defy the Emperor?" demanded the Landgrave hotly.

"I have answered the Emperor—I have answered King Philip—I have

explained myself to all Europe." He exerted himself to speak pleasantly,

but behind the tolerance of his tone was a certain indignation.

The Landgrave was baffled and irritated.

"You are obstinate, Highness, but that will not save you. What do you

hope to do?"

"To enter the Netherlands while Louis holds Alva in check in Friesland."

"And if you fail? Can you pay the troops? Have you a means of retreat?"

"I have not counted the cost so closely," replied William. "I hope that

the great cities will open to me and that I shall not lack wherewith to

pay my troops—if not, I can but pledge my word that these debts shall be

redeemed when I can achieve the means."

"Do you ever hope to obtain your estates again?"

"I hope everything," said William, and he smiled with his unconquerable

cheerfulness, which was like the cheerfulness of Louis, impervious to

all attacks. Gloom, melancholy, and despondency were unknown to the

House of Nassau. "And yet I expect nothing," he added. "I make neither

boasts nor prophecies, Landgrave; I but take the instruments to my hand

and do what I may with them."

"Your motive?" cried the other. "Is Your Highness ambitious or fanatic?"

The Prince replied rather wearily—

"I have proclaimed my motives again and again, Excellency. I have

explained myself at every German Court, before England, before France—I

fight Alva and the Spanish rule over the Netherlands."

"You fight King Philip," answered the Landgrave, "though you keep up a

fiction of loyalty; and who do you think will unite with you against

Spain, who is half the old world and all the new?"

William smiled again.

"Let him keep his new world and his old, I but want the Netherlands. Ah,

Excellency," he added, "it is in your power to refuse me help and to

turn your back on me—it is not in your power to discourage me nor hold

me back."

The Landgrave rose impatiently with a rough gesture.

"You are madmen, you and your brothers, and will meet with the fate of

madmen."

The Prince thought of Adolphus, and winced.

"It may well be," he said quietly; "believe that we counted that cost

before we undertook our tasks."

"It is useless to speak any more!" exclaimed the Landgrave angrily.

"On this subject, yes."

The Prince rose and held out his hand affectionately. "You will stay

with us to-night?" he added with courtesy.

The Landgrave refused.

"I go to my lodging; I will come to-morrow to see if you are in a better

frame of mind, Highness."

He saluted both, and abruptly left; the Prince returned to his

unfinished letter.

"It is a strange thing," said Count Hoogstraaten, "how many are ready to

hold a man back, how few to push him forward! Always these councils of

prudence, of caution, of non-resistance, of humility, and cringing!"

And the fiery little soldier went angrily to the window and stared

fiercely out on the hot night; there was something lion-like in his

slender heavy-shouldered figure, in his blunt-featured face, in his pose

of noble anger as he gazed out on the darkness as if it concealed the

numberless hosts of his foes.

The Prince finished his letter and joined his friend in the

window-place.

"If we live we shall succeed," he said. "If we die as the others

died—well, a worse thing might befall us. And what does submission ever

gain? Better to fall like Adolphus than like—Egmont."

His voice saddened on his friend's name and his eyes too turned towards

the darkness as if he also pictured there the swarming battalions of his

mighty enemies.

"We have had our pleasant times, Hoogstraaten," he added; "our gay

morning was fair and easy, and now we are men and must take the labour

and heat of the day——"

He stopped abruptly; his quick ear had caught the sound of an opening

door. It was the Seigneur de Louverwal who entered; he carried

dispatches which had, he said, been forwarded to one Van Baren—an agent

of the Prince in Brussels—and by him to Strasburg.

The letters were from Count Louis and the agent himself.

William's lips tightened, the blood receded from his dark cheek, and he

caught his under lip with his teeth as he read his brother's letter.

It was written from a farmhouse on the German frontier, and announced

the Count's pitiable and utter overthrow.

Out-manœuvred by Alva, harassed by mutinous troops, lack of money, and

provision, betrayed by his own fiery impatience, Louis had been driven

to the village of Jemmingen on the Ems, and there his wretched forces

had been wiped out by Alva's splendid army and Alva's cool skill.

Those who had escaped the battle were massacred; the blood of nearly ten

thousand rebels had washed from Alva's laurels the stain left by the

little victory of Heiliger Lee.

William read the letter over twice, then sank into a chair; he was never

sanguine, but he had not been prepared for such a blow as this. He felt

his head reel and his heart beat fast; the light of the little lamp grew

dim before his eyes and the room dark. It was with an unsteady hand that

he handed the letter to Hoogstraaten.

So the third of the armies he had got together with such infinite pains

and toil and sacrifice had disappeared before Alva like chaff before a

bright flame.

De Cocqueville in Artois, De Villars in Juliers, Louis at Jemmingen—all

defeated, utterly, completely, for ever.

A passionate exclamation broke from Hoogstraaten as he and De Louverwal

read the dispatch; it roused William, who took up the agent's letter and

read it slowly.

This contained fuller details of the disaster brought by a Spanish

soldier to Maestricht, where Van Baren had been.

He now wrote to the Prince that only a handful of the rebels had

escaped, and that they, with Count Louis, had swum the Ems and fled into

Germany. He wrote of the ghastly butchery which had followed the

victory, how all the dikes and swamps were red, and the sky red also

with burning crops and houses, for Alva had laid waste Friesland from

end to end, sparing neither woman nor child.

And against this background of horrors stood out the desperate heroism

of Louis who had dashed again and again among his reluctant troops, who

had hurled himself single-handed on the enemy, who had, when the gunners

had fled, fired his only artillery—the Groningen cannon, the poor spoils

of Heiliger Lee—with his own hand, going from one to the other with the

firebrand; and that desperate volley had been the last volley of the

rebels.

When William read of his brother's piteous and splendid attempts to turn

back the dark tides of disaster, when he read of the slaying and burning

of his little army ("the dead were so thick they choked the river"), he

rose with a movement of intolerable agony, and a sharp sound

unconsciously escaped him—the cry of one swiftly and unexpectedly

wounded.

"O Christ! O, Christ!" muttered Hoogstraaten, and he looked about him

bewildered. "Who will give us levies now? How shall we do anything?"

De Louverwal turned his face away and wept.

The Prince still said nothing; he loosened his falling collar and wiped

his face and neck bathed in cold sweat; he put his hand to his throat,

and his lips parted as if he stifled; then he closed his mouth firmly

and continued to pass the handkerchief over his face.

It was the same unconscious gesture of mental agony that Lamoral Egmont

had used on the scaffold.

"Ah, Highness," cried Hoogstraaten—"ah, Highness, what news is this?"

and his voice was hoarse with love and pity and wrath.

"Eh?" said the Prince faintly. "Eh?"

He turned to face his friend, and looked at him a moment almost blankly.

Then he spoke.

"We must go on—there is the more need that we go on."

"Is it possible?" broke from De Louverwal.

"Before God, it is very possible," answered William, and his voice was

suddenly strong.

He had now recovered complete mastery of himself; he sat down and wrote

a letter of consolation and encouragement to Louis.

CHAPTER VII

THE ACTION ON THE GETA

The Duke of Alva marched back triumphantly from Groningen, celebrated

the overthrow of Louis of Nassau with arrogant and hollow rejoicings in

the overawed capital, tortured and beheaded several persons of

distinction—including the brilliant and loyal Burgomaster of Antwerp,

Anthony van Straaten—and offered up hundreds of lesser victims as

thank-offerings on the altar of his success, and melted the famous

Groningen cannon to cast a statue of himself.

Meanwhile William of Orange, by tireless exertions, indomitable

patience, courage, and enthusiasm, and by superhuman straining of every

nerve to raise the money, had assembled an army of thirty thousand men,

and exercising his right as a sovereign Prince he declared war on the

Duke of Alva, issued a proclamation of his motives to the Netherlands,

and marched toward the frontier of Brabant, near Maestricht, where Alva

was encamped.

He wished to hazard everything on one great battle where he might wipe

out the disasters of Dalem, Artois, and Jemmingen, encourage his

soldiers, and hearten the Netherlands.

But Alva would not give battle; his cold and cruel genius saw that his

advantage lay in delay, that William had not the money to keep his army

together long, and that the German mercenaries, unpaid and inactive,

would soon mutiny and desert.

William saw this too, but it was impossible for him to entice the wily

Spaniard into an engagement.

Meanwhile the main difficulty remained the money; every thaler the

Nassau family could raise had gone on the three lost armies and on

equipping the present one for the field. In his proclamation he had said

with a touching courage and cheerfulness, "We have now an excellent army

of cavalry, artillery, and infantry raised all at our own expense," but

this 'excellent army' could not be kept together without pay or plunder,

and the generous hand that had supplied them was now empty.

William appealed to the Netherlander whom he was coming to rescue, but

the three previous defeats had disheartened utterly the miserable

populace, and it was but a wretched sum that the Prince received; three

hundred thousand crowns had been promised to his agent, Marcus Pery, and

but ten thousand reached the camp. Applications to the gentlemen who had

signed Brederode's famous Compromise brought no results; and wherever

the Prince's army moved the people fell away from his line of march, not

daring to lift a hand in his service.

Well might one of the devices which showed on his banners be that of a

pelican in her piety feeding her young with her own blood, for it was

from themselves alone the Nassau Princes received support.

When the Prince mustered his army in Trêves, he had with him the

dauntless Louis, the young Henry, and Hoogstraaten, and he was soon

joined by Lumey, Count de la Marck, at the head of a ferocious band of

followers. This nobleman, reckless, rough, and daring was a blood

kinsman of Lamoral Egmont, and had joined William out of motives of

personal hate and revenge against Alva.

At St. Feit the Prince crossed the Rhine, then by a bold and brilliant

movement his army swam the Meuse (to Alva's incredulous rage), and

marched into Brabant with all the pomp of war.

Nearly thirty times he changed his camp on the plains of Brabant, each

time hoping to lure the Duke into an engagement; each time Alva, though

for ever hanging on the skirts of the rebels, managed, with consummate

skill, to refuse an action.

So passed the weary days of autumn; by the middle of October the Prince

was at St. Trond, intending to effect a junction with a body of French

Huguenots under De Genlis who were waiting at Waveren.

As always Alva was at the Prince's heels, skirmishing incessantly with

the outposts, but always withdrawing his main army when William advanced

for an engagement.

"This will end soon, one way or another," said the Prince. "Either we

have a general action, or all is lost for this campaign."

He spoke in his tent at St. Trond to Louis and Hoogstraaten; outside

were the camp noises and the slash of an autumn shower against the

canvas.

Louis, almost ill with the irritation and fury of being constantly

out-manœuvred, of seeing the army slip from them while Alva quietly

waited, half-crazed with the thought of his own powerlessness to avert

the miserable failure of the campaign, made no answer, and Hoogstraaten

could only gnash his teeth.

But William remained patient; perhaps he had not expected any more

glorious results from this desperate venture.

Quietly he stated the position.

"It is impossible to pay the men another penny, or even to feed them

much longer. I heard to-day that Alva has dismantled all the mills in

this district. There will, of course, be a mutiny—it is quite impossible

to keep them together beyond November, which they take as the beginning

of the winter."

"There must be an action!" cried Louis passionately. "There must be, if

I ride into Alva's camp and challenge him to his face!"

And the Count shook with rage at the thought of this army, got together

with such infinite sacrifices, being miserably disbanded.

But his impatience did not help, William would have reminded him of the

results of his fiery recklessness at Jemmingen.

"Alva will never be enticed into an action," said Hoogstraaten, "he is

as cold as this!" and he struck the steel hilt of his sword. "He is not

Aremberg to be fired by his officers into an imprudence; he is a great

general, though a cruel animal. God curse him."

"I salute his generalship," said William, with a bitter smile. "I admit

he has defeated my hopes. One victory—one doubtful victory—and every

city in the Netherlands would have opened to me, all over the country

the people would have risen, for he rules by terror only. Now no one

dares move—all silent, trembling—and I helpless," he added, with sudden

passion, "my God, helpless!"

The exclamation was like a passionate prayer. William, young, ardent,

full of courage and energy, felt that word "helpless" the most terrible

of all.

But he instantly recovered himself with that mental strength that made

all things possible to him.

"I must meet De Genlis, his reinforcements may be strong, he may have

brought money," he said, then added with his unfailing thoughtful

generosity, "Besides he has made his way through the Ardennes to meet

me, and I cannot fail him."

"Alva might attack as we cross the Geta," said Louis hopefully.

"It is possible—it might be done," answered the Prince.

"He is too cautious," said Hoogstraaten; "nothing will tempt him."

William rose, went to the entrance of the tent, and lifted the flap that

concealed the October night.

The rain was now over and the moon had risen large and yellow, showing

the encampment and the motionless lines of the ruined windmill that

crowned the high hill opposite. Behind this hill flowed the Geta on the

opposite bank of which Count de Genlis waited for William.

Beyond, where the dark clouds lay heavy on the horizon, was Alva, like a

crouching beast, following his prey cautiously and waiting for it to

fall exhausted ere he sprang.

The Prince's face hardened as he gazed at the ominous darkness faintly

sprinkled with the Spanish camp fires; he thought of Egmont and Hoorne,

Brederode, and Berghen—of Adolphus, and his own stolen son, his own

insulted name, his own confiscated property; and against Philip and

Philip's red right hand—the hard old man crouching there with his talons

deep in the flesh of the Netherlands—his whole soul went out in wrath

and defiance and a hatred that was like a sensation of triumph and

pleasure.

"Well, old man," he thought passionately, "I am loved here as you are

hated—and some day that will tell."

He was joined by Hoogstraaten and Count Louis; all three were almost

without hope; all were living, and had long been living, a life of

hardship, privation, and peril; all of them faced a prospect of either

violent death or utter beggary and exile, yet their mutual youth,

courage, and energy communicated to each other, together with the sense

of love and comradeship, made them almost joyful.

They began discussing plans for the crossing of the Geta to-morrow.

A force was to be stationed on the hill, which rose now blackly against

the moonlit sky, to protect the crossing of the main body of the troops,

while the rearguard under Hoogstraaten was to remain on the bank in a

desperate attempt to lure Alva.

In case this was successful and the Spaniard advanced his main army,

William and Louis were to recross the Geta and engage.

The plan was desperate, and William could hardly place much reliance on

it, but Hoogstraaten was exultant at the chance of coming to grips with

the enemy.

Louis felt some vexation that the command of the rearguard had not been

given to him; the truth was William relied more on Hoogstraaten's

coolness than Louis' audacity in this perilous and delicate position.

"You have Jemmingen against me!" said Louis, with a laugh, and he pulled

at his orange sash with strong impatient fingers.

"Confess, Count," cried Hoogstraaten gaily, "that your retreat then was

unnecessary and that Alva does not deserve to be so feared! Here we have

been several days in the Netherlands and we have seen nothing of the

Spaniards but their backs!"

"And when you see their faces," replied Louis, vexed, "I warrant you

will remember it for the rest of your life."

Hoogstraaten caught his arm and begged his forgiveness for the rough

jest.

"Ah, jest while you can," said Louis, instantly smiling again.

"A light heart never hurt any cause," said William.

He dropped the tent flap and called his page; bidding the boy give him

his sword, his mantle, and his hat, and to have his horse brought, he

prepared to make a tour of his forces and see all was in readiness for

the morrow.

The Count Louis and Hoogstraaten departed on the same business to their

several commands; first all three embraced warmly, and, in case they

should not meet again before the bustle and confusion of the morning,

William gave Hoogstraaten some parting words of encouragement.

Despite their terrible anxieties and the agonizing difficulties of their

position, the three commanders were now cheerful, almost gay.

The night was beautiful, warm, lit by the mellow light of the harvest

moon and fragrant with the smell of the earth recently moistened by the

rain.

The Prince's men, as if encouraged by the decisive action promised for

the morrow, were also quiet and seemed cheerful; a few days before there

had been a fierce mutiny, when the Prince's sword had been shot from his

side, but now all was tranquil, and William was loyally received as he

went on his rounds.

Some of the refugee Netherlander were gathered together in an open space

between the tents listening to the words of a Calvinist minister; little

groups of others, scattered here and there, sang psalms softly to

themselves.

The German mercenaries were engaged in mending their clothes, in cooking

their supper, or in playing dice.

The keen smell of coarse hot soup, the strong scent of the picketed

horses mingled on the fresh air; the light of the lanterns at the tent

entrances and the small fires feebly rising after the shower shone on

pots and pans, pieces of polished or rusty armour, bundles of kindling

sticks covered with autumn leaves, and baskets of apples and pears,

golden-red.

Here and there the windows of the little farmhouses and cottages where

the officers were quartered glowed with a bright light.

William, riding with his little band of officers from one battalion to

another, dreamt of a victory, of turning back Alva's troops, of breaking

his prestige, of a whole country throwing off with groans of relief the

loathed Spanish chains and welcoming her deliverers.

He had no grounds for such dreams but the sense of life and strength in

his own body, in the fine horse beneath him, in the exaltation he

received in gazing at the noble cloudy spaces of the sky, and the great

moon that had shone on so many battles, and in the dark outlines of the

hills and horizons of the hidden country.

Nor was he disheartened by the sight of the surgeon with his mule and

cases going from tent to tent, nor by that of a cartful of dead men

whose limbs fell limp as rags and whose bodies were defaced with

gunshot; near these victims of a little skirmish was a tent of men, ill

of a malarious fever, the sharp delirious voices of some came out on to

the night.

The Prince continued on horseback till the dawn, when he returned to his

tent to arm, and the army moved into battle array.

The sun rose strong and clear though with the mellow radiance of the Low

Countries and the autumn; all that had been obscured by the dead light

of the moon was now distinct: the scars and rags of the soldiers, the

brilliant scarves of the officers, the disorder and dirt of the camp,

the broken sails of the tall thatched windmill, the dried autumn grass

on the little hill, the low waters of the Geta sparkling a sluggish

gold.

Still all seemed hopeful, cheerful, full of presages of good fortune.

Birds were singing in the trees growing in the farm gardens, a few

poppies and daisies blew on the hillsides, the sun was warm as summer

but the air fresh with the coolness of the turn of the year.

William rode with his troops to the banks of the Geta, and sent them

across in good order and safety, battalion after battalion.

The Spanish, whose outposts were near enough to observe these movements,

made no sign of action.

Meanwhile, Hoogstraaten remained behind on the bank with three thousand

men, while the Seigneur de Louverwal and a detachment of cavalry

occupied the hill.

Steadily and successfully the Prince's army forded the river, regiment

after regiment passing undisturbed, the infantry on the cruppers of the

horsemen or wading at their stirrups. Again and again William glanced at

the little hill where the patriotic banners of Hoogstraaten waved.

About noon the Spanish attacked.

Don Frederic, the Prior of St. John, brought up seven thousand troops

and threw himself against the Netherlanders.

All was obscured in the lilac-coloured smoke of cannon and musket shot

with flames; William could no longer see his banners nor the gallant

lines of Hoogstraaten's men.

The Spanish did not cross the river, as the three leaders had so

desperately hoped, nor could William return, as the further bank was now

lined by Alva's cannon.

No news came from the fierce conflict surging to and fro by the waters

of the Geta, but towards evening the foul smoke cleared, and the Spanish

flag was visible floating from the shot-riddled windmill.

A little later a few soldiers escaped across the river, bringing to the

Prince news that the entire rearguard had been cut to pieces, that

Louverwal was a prisoner, and that the survivors of the awful day were

now being massacred by Don Frederic's men.

Another miserable handful brought with them Hoogstraaten, unconscious,

fastened to his horse by the reins, and with a shattered foot.

AU that night the moonlight was dimmed by the fires that burnt along the

Geta.

These flames came from the farmhouses where Hoogstraaten's men had taken

a despairing refuge. Don Frederic had at once ordered these buildings to

be set alight, and those maddened wretches who hurled themselves from

the flames found themselves impaled on the spears of the Spanish waiting

without.

The nobler spirits put an end to their own lives to escape the taunts of

their enemies; all alike disappeared in the same funeral pyres, the

high-mounting flames of which illuminated the fierce faces of the

victorious army and the stately figure of the militant priest who

commanded them, and cast a red glow of blood and fire on those two

triumphant symbols—the arms of the King of Spain, the cross of the

Romish Church.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ANABAPTIST PREACHER

A few days after this fourth disaster the Prince joined the Huguenots at

Waveren.

These allies, late as they were, might have proved of some material

assistance, for they consisted of three thousand foot and three hundred

horse—all eager Protestants, not hired mercenaries, but as soon as he

rode into the French camp the Prince saw that he was face to face with

another disappointment.

The little force of Count de Genlis was so hampered with women and

children, aged folk and infirm, that it was likely to prove rather a

burden than a relief to the over-taxed resources of the Prince.

The Huguenots indeed rather seemed a band of refugees escaping from

destruction themselves than an army marching to the rescue of persecuted

brethren.

Even De Genlis, the high-spirited and gallant French commander, could

not advise William to try another engagement in the Netherlands, though

they were within a few leagues of Brussels and of Louraine.

And William was as helpless as if his hands and feet were tied. He could

neither pay his men, nor feed them; every day some deserted. Alva's

masterly tactics had succeeded; the Prince's army was dispersing without

having accomplished anything but the ruin of their commander, for

William was personally pledged for the payment of the troops, and he had

neither property nor credit with which to redeem his word.

He had staked heavily and lost heavily, and now stood stripped and

beggared before the world.

In his camp at Waveren he faced his position which he saw clearly for

all his cheerfulness; he admitted that Alva had out-generaled him, but

not in that was his bitterest disappointment, but in the silence of the

Netherlands.

He had believed that the people would rise to welcome him; he had hoped

that some cities would open their gates to him, he had been confident

that the nobles and merchants would assist him with money.

He had not sufficiently reckoned on the strength of terror which Alva

had inspired, nor on the awful condition of the unfortunate

Netherlanders.

He who had always been used to princely dealings, to use generosity and

lavishness to all, was now bitterly humiliated and galled by his

inability to redeem his solemn promise; and that to him was the

bitterest part of his universal failure. Alva's triumph, the

disappointment of his friends, his own lost prestige, and disgrace, his

own personal beggary—these things did not move him as did the thought of

the weary mutinous soldiers whom he could not pay, nor, as far as he

could see, would be ever able to pay.

Winter was approaching, the land was as barren, the weather as chill, as

the prospects of William of Orange.

As he sat in his tent this late October evening he felt the cold wind

creep under the canvas and penetrate his mantle so that he shivered. His

camp furniture was in some disorder, and half the large tent was

curtained off by a handsome purple hanging.

Behind this lay Count Hoogstraaten. William had ordered him to be

removed into his own tent, because neither he nor any man would long

have the company of Hoogstraaten now.

The surgeon came from this inner apartment and said the Count slept.

William's eyes looked a question.

"When he wakes?" said the surgeon. "I fear, Your Highness, that when he

wakes it will be but a waking to death."

He bowed and took his leave; he had many cases in the camp.

The Prince turned his gaze towards the purple curtains and leant back

heavily in his chair. It seemed as if all his friends, all who loved

him, trusted him, served him, were to be taken from him, involved in the

common misfortune he had brought on them.

It seemed ironical, a needless cruelty, that the brave, generous, and

gay Hoogstraaten should die.

His wound had been caused by the chance discharge of his own pistol, and

at first had not seemed dangerous, but he had sunk into weakness and

fever, a sickness perhaps as much of a despairing mind as of a wounded

body, and now he lay slipping into death.

It had been an added torture to William to listen to the sick man's

delirium—all on the theme of the dissolving army, the fruitless

campaign, the liabilities of the commanders, the useless slaughter on

the Geta, for which the poor Count held himself responsible.

"Supplies, supplies, if we could but get supplies, if we could but keep

the men together!" had been the burden of the dying soldier's delirium,

and William passionately wished that some good news might come if only

to allow Hoogstraaten to die in peace.

But no good news did come; rather was misfortune heaped on misfortune.

The Prince held now in his hand letters from Dillenburg received a few

days ago; Count John wrote with the gallant Nassau cheerfulness, but

could not disguise that he sent evil tidings.

Anne of Saxony had seized the moment of her husband's ruin to forsake

him; despite the letters of the Prince, the expostulations of her German

kinsfolk and the Nassau women, Anne had flung herself free of all

loyalty, and broken the bonds which had so long been hateful. She had

written to Alva, throwing herself on his mercy and declaring she was a

widow in the eyes of the law, as her husband was a prescribed exile with

no civil rights, and entreating the Duke to return her her dowry out of

William's confiscated property.

Then, abandoning her daughter and her baby son, she had fled from

Dillenburg to Cologne and there set up a household of her own,

surrounded by the exiles and refugees that crowded the city.

The news had not much power to hurt William's heart, his wife had been

so long, even from the first, indifferent to him, and he could despise

her disloyalty; but it was another blow to his pride, his dignity, the

completion of his ruin, another cause for his enemies to laugh at him.

"Madame your wife," had always been one of the objects of Granvelle's

keen sneers, and the Cardinal, watching events from Rome, would sneer

indeed now, as he would sneer at the army so painfully collected, so

miserably dispersed, at the Prince who had defied the King of Spain and

been beaten from his country's frontiers, a beggared exile.

It was not in William's nature to feel wrathful towards the woman who

had so struck him, his sentiment now was a vast indifference, as if she

had never existed, or only existed as some shadow from whom he was at

last for ever free.

As he sat there in a loneliness only peopled by bitter and sad

reflections and the spectres of ruin, failure, and despair, two of the

officers attached to his person entered the tent.

The Prince looked up sharply, as if bracing himself to hear further

disaster.

But the officers came with news of trifling importance: A fellow,

evidently a Netherlander, had made his way into the camp last night and

had entreated most earnestly for an audience of the Prince, and had gone

from one officer to another with such importunate eagerness, that at

length they had been moved to prefer his request to the General himself.

William had always been easy of access in the days of his prosperity,

and it was not in him to surround himself with state in this time of his

misfortune and overthrow.

He smiled faintly, drawing his brows together as he did when perplexed

or amused.

"Let him come here," he said.

One of the officers suggested that perhaps the fellow was one of Alva's

spies or assassins.

"Oh, that!" exclaimed William wearily.

Death was the least of the terrors with which he had to contend; he knew

that probably Alva schemed to murder him, and it left him as indifferent

as did the thought of Anne's treachery.

As soon as the officers left him he retired so completely into his own

thoughts again that he forgot the incident, and it was with a slight

start that he looked up to see a stranger, escorted by two soldiers,

standing before the tent entrance.

This man stood very humbly bowing, as if too overcome by some emotion to

speak, and William, interested in him, bade him enter, and dismissed the

soldiers.

The stranger was of middle life with the appearance of humble birth and

poor means; his clothes, though exquisitely neat, were shabby and thin;

his features were pinched with cold, and maybe privation.

He stood crushing his hat to his breast and gazing at the Prince with an

expression of utter confusion and awe.

William addressed him in Flemish, kindly asking him his errand.

The other continued to gaze at him with that look of wonder and

reverence that was embarrassed but not at all stupid, rather a kind of

amaze, as if he could not credit that this slim young man, with the pale

dark face, wrapped in the plain blue mantle could be the great Prince of

Orange.

"It is His Highness?" he asked timidly.

"I am William of Orange," answered the Prince, and as he spoke he felt

that it was the name of the most unfortunate of men.

As the man seemed to need further encouragement, William added, "It was

he you wished to see?"

"I have come all the way from Holland to see Your Highness," was the

simple reply.

"From Holland? Alone?"

"Yes, Your Highness. It is a long way, and the Duke of Alva's army was

often in my way—otherwise I would have been with Your Highness sooner,"

he added, in a tone of deprecating apology.

The Prince looked keenly at the quiet-looking individual who had

undertaken with such simplicity a journey which meant risking his life a

thousand times.

"Who are you, my friend?" he asked gently.

The man raised his eyes which under this gaze he had kept abased, and

William was instantly conscious of a resolute and fearless spirit

looking out of the plain insignificant face.

"I am an Anabaptist preacher, Your Highness; I have a little

congregation of poor outcasts in Holland—we mostly live in hiding, and

meet secretly to worship. There are not so many of us as there were, for

the persecutions have been very fierce and we are quite defenceless.

"A little while ago a gentleman of Haarlem smuggled into the town a copy

of Your Highness's most noble proclamation, and it came into my hands.

"That day I knelt to bless God for having raised up such a Prince, and

when my poor people met together again I read them the joyful news, and

told them that Your Highness appealed for money to support your army,

whereat we, with a good heart, put together what we could, and as I was

the only one who had no one dependent on me and knew the country well, I

was elected to carry this small offering to Your Highness."

The Prince was too overwhelmed to speak; his quick mind, his warm heart,

pictured the whole incident: The hunted outcast Protestants reading his

paper, their eager gratitude and hopes, the secret putting together of

what they could pinch from their poverty, the setting forth of the

pastor, the perils and anxieties of his journey with his precious

burden, his self-denial and hardship rather than touch his treasure, the

modest unconsciousness with which he made his little speech—all this

William saw vividly.

"Your Highness in your paper speaks of repayment," continued the

Anabaptist, "but we require no payment, only kindness when Your Highness

shall be triumphant."

Cautiously he took from the wallet at his side a small canvas bag, and,

gazing at it with a look of relief and a touch of pride, laid it on the

little table beside the Prince.

With a movement almost mechanical William untied the strings and looked

at the contents.

There were about a hundred crowns in gold and some silver—this last what

the pastor had saved on his journey by sleeping in ditches and almost

starving.

"It is very little," said the Anabaptist nervously, oppressed by the

silence of the Prince; "the will is better than the gift."

William remained motionless, staring at the pitiful little bag of money

which represented such a spirit of sacrifice, such an enthusiasm still

existent in the country he had deemed supine and crushed.

"I thank you," he faltered, "indeed—I—thank you——" A hundred crowns! and

one month's wage of his army was some hundreds of thousands of crowns. A

hundred crowns! A few years ago he had flung away as much on a pair of

gauntlets—a dog—a toy; the smallness of the gift moved the Prince almost

beyond bearing. He held out his hand towards the Anabaptist, and he, who

had endured the loss of his brother, his friends, his wife, his army,

his fortune, with fortitude, now broke down before this humble sympathy.

Putting his other hand before his eyes, he wept.

"Your Highness will receive more," stammered the pastor. "There are

other Protestant congregations who are collecting for you—even if the

big towns do not open, you have entered the hearts of the

Netherlanders."

The Prince's shoulders heaved; he raised his face, flushed and quivering

with tears.

"I thank you," he repeated, in a firm voice. "I thank you from my

heart—you see me weak, but you must not notice it—I have not slept well

of late. I will give you my receipt for this money and you must thank

your people for me, and tell them I will repay them as soon as I can

repay any of my debts—and for yourself take this, in remembrance of me,"

he drew from his finger a little yellow intaglio seal ring—one of the

few personal jewels left him—and put it on the thin finger of the

Anabaptist who bent before him in speechless gratitude and pleasure.

Promising to see him again before his departure, the Prince was sending

away the preacher in the custody of his page, that the poor traveller

might enjoy the best hospitality the camp could afford, when the

Anabaptist turned and asked with a timid earnestness, "Are the faith of

Your Highness and that faith you come to protect, the same?"

"My faith?" repeated William.

"Forgive me, but it is not commonly known if you follow the true

religion."

"I follow what I believe to be true," said the Prince. "Otherwise I

could not go on. For the rest, I am no Romanist." He paused a moment,

then added with a little smile, "If any of your people ask after me,

tell them that I too am an outcast and an exile—that I, too, am a

heretic. Say, too, that I am not discouraged, that if I fail now I shall

endeavour to try again. Ask them to be courageous and to give me their

prayers."

When he was alone again he lifted the curtains and went to Count

Hoogstraaten's bedside.

The gallant little soldier lay propped on pillows and covered with rugs;

the dim light of a shaded lamp fell on the bold young face which, in the

last few days, had changed so terribly, and over which the shadow of

death now rested.

He was tossing in a restless sleep; William went on his knees beside him

and put his cool hand on the hot forehead dewed with beads of pain and

exhaustion.

The Count lay quiet awhile, then opened his eyes; he recognized the

Prince immediately, and at once his dry lips began to murmur the words

that were the expression of the mental agony that was killing him—

"Any news? Any supplies? Any money raised? Any means of keeping the men

together?"

William firmly clasped the feverish hand that lay outside the coverlet.

"Help has come," he answered; "but now I have left a man who brought me

supplies from Holland—and there are other promises of assistance."

A light came into the dying man's eyes. His tense body relaxed with a

shiver of relief.

"Then—then you will be able to carry on the campaign?" he said faintly.

"With God's help I shall go on," answered the Prince gravely.

"Supplies, you say—from Holland?" murmured Hoogstraaten.

"Just brought into the camp—in gold," said William, "and, as I said,

there are other promises; many, many are willing to help us—the country

begins to move in our favour."

The Count closed his eyes and was silent, but his face relaxed into a

look of content, and William blessed the hundred crowns of the

Anabaptist that had served to soothe the bitterness of failure and death

for his friend.

For a while they remained thus, the Prince kneeling and holding the

tired right hand that had been unfailing in his service, the Count with

his face pressed to the pillow and his eyes closed.

William thought of the tumultuous days in Antwerp when Hoogstraaten, and

he only, had stood faithfully and bravely by his side—thought of all the

long, loyal, sincere friendship that went back to the old gay times of

feast and joust, hawking and hunting—the times when neither Anthony de

Lalaing nor he had ever dreamt of such an hour as this. He thought, too,

of the Countess at Dillenburg—waiting—already in mourning for one

brother dead, and one doomed to die—waiting for the news—the news which

would be that of a third bereavement; he thought of Anne at Cologne,

cringing before Alva, and wondered if she would not be glad if her

husband, that great heretic and rebel, was dead too.

Towards midnight the sick man spoke again, recommending his poor wife—he

said twice, with a great sigh, "My poor wife!"—to the Prince, and

begging him help, should occasion offer, his child, for the Count was

beggared in the cause for which he died, and the Montmorencys, his

wife's people, were more than beggared.

"Not to be a burden to you," he insisted in his weak, hoarse voice,

"but—what you can—if Hoorne had been here——"

William promised, and the Count carried the Prince's hand to his heart

and held it there.

He was now so clearly failing that Louis and other officers came to say

farewell; he was still a Romanist, but there was no priest in the camp.

A Lutheran minister brought him what comfort he could.

"It is no matter," said Hoogstraaten, who was now past formulas. "God

must judge of me—into Thy hands—into Thy hands——"

Before the dawn he died, and the party he had espoused was the poorer

for his loss, and the Prince a lonelier man.

"I am glad you have the supplies," were his last words, spoken so low

that none but William, who held his head on his breast, could hear. "I

am glad that gold came from Holland."

William, too, was glad for many reasons.

CHAPTER IX

WINTER TIME

The castle of Dillenburg was now a house of mourning, the Countess of

Hoogstraaten now wore black also; all the women went softly, talking in

whispers, and shuddering when a messenger rode into the courtyard.

Count John was desperately employed in raising money for the Prince; a

further mortgage was put on such lands as they still could control,

further portions of the Prince's possessions—those few he had retained

for himself were sold; his chapel furniture was melted to obtain the

gold and silver it contained, he had himself sold by auction all his

camp equipment—even his horses, his weapons, his armour—leaving himself

with one mount, one sword, one suit of mail like any poor trooper.

He had sent orders that his remaining household should be dismissed.

Some had gone with Anne to Cologne; others, scenting ruin, had already

dispersed; the remainder left, now returning to their homes or seeking

other employment. The Prince, who had been the most richly attended of

any man in the Netherlands, had now not one servant; and he, the

splendour of whose garments had been one of the glories of the capital,

now wrote to his brother to send him "Two more pair of hose—the mended

silk ones in my cabinet and those under repair at the tailor"; he who

had always been regally magnificent in his gifts, now besought John to

"find a good grey horse, which might be paid for by one of the silver

ornaments still remaining in my cabinet, or a piece of the chapel

service," with which to reward one of his faithful agents.

He had tried to persuade his troops to take service with the French

Huguenots, but they had refused, and demanded to be led back to Germany;

he was accordingly at Strasburg, where he disbanded this army on which

so many gallant hopes had been set, and which had ruined him so utterly.

The gloom deepened over Dillenburg, even John, usually so resolute and

cheerful, appeared sombre; he too was almost ruined; his fortune and his

children's heritage had largely vanished in this fruitless and fatal

campaign; he saw himself burdened with debts and liabilities which it

was scarcely possible he could ever repay.

The women cried in secret, but were outwardly serene, and Juliana of

Stolberg wrote encouraging letters to the Prince and to Louis, and her

dreads and terrors only showed for an instant in the words with which

she besought them to have a care of Henry and not needlessly risk his

young life.

In this household Rénèe le Meung still lingered, supported by the

kindness of the Countess of Nassau and her daughters in what was the

blackest period of her sad life.

In the flight of Anne she saw her own failure, the collapse of her own

long years of patient labour—all had been useless. Anne had fulfilled

her destiny, and the waiting-woman was left without occupation and

without any object in life—behind her the wasted barren years, before

her a hopeless future.

She was as bankrupt as the Prince and as lonely.

It was clear she could not remain at Dillenburg; she was but a burden

and an encumbrance in a household beginning to be run with the strictest

economy. Anne had fiercely refused to take her to Cologne, nor did Rénèe

wish to go, for her influence over the Princess had ceased and Anne was

openly defying her husband and her kinsfolk. She was living at Cologne

surrounded by any rabble she could find to sympathize with her, and she

had put her legal affairs—her frantic attempts to recover her property,

and her wild expedients to raise money—into the hands of Jan Rubens, the

Brussels' lawyer.

Rénèe sickened to think of this; her whole spirit was crushed by the

misfortunes which had overwhelmed not only her country and her faith but

all she cared for, and the little world in which she had moved and

served.

There was no further occupation for her at Dillenburg; William's

children were in charge of his mother and sisters and of the Landgravine

Elisabeth, Count John's wife.

The Court of the Elector Palatine—that refuge of all persecuted

Protestants—occurred to Rénèe; some German ladies she had known at

Dresden were prepared to welcome her there.

She suggested this plan to the Countess of Nassau one heavy November day

when they walked in the castle gardens to catch the faint chill glimpse

of the winter sun.

"You, too, are eager to leave us!" exclaimed the Countess, who could not

forget Anne's fierce denunciations of the dulness of the life at

Dillenburg.

"No, Madame, no," said Rénèe eagerly; "but I must work—in some way I

must justify my life—or die."

Juliana pressed her hand kindly.

"I know, my child, I know. There is indeed nothing but idleness for you

here where we women are too many already."

"It is terrible to be a woman!" cried Rénèe. "Too many, ah yes, too

many!"

"But we are not useless," said the Countess gently.

The waiting-woman answered with passionate conviction—

"Not such women as you with five sons!—but women such as I! I am like a

dead leaf before the breeze; if I am cast away and lost, no one will be

the poorer. If I had been a man, however mean and humble, I could have

followed—followed," she avoided the Prince's name, "the Protestant

flag—I could have at least died. It is not even permitted to women to

die nobly."

The Countess looked at her curiously and was silent. To Juliana also the

enclosed life of a woman seemed at times terrible; there was something

awful in this post in the background, always to be patient, always

serving, always waiting—worst of all, the waiting.

At that moment the fate of the women seemed worse than that of the men;

their piteous figures stood out mournfully against the red background of

the persecutions and the war: Sabina of Egmont left starving with her

children at the mercy of the man who had slain her husband; the Dowager

Countess of Hoorne, having lost one son on the scaffold, moving heaven

and earth to save the other from a similar fate; Hélène, Montigny's

wife, widowed after a four month's marriage, and weeping a husband

enclosed in the hopeless depths of a Spanish prison; the Countess of

Hoogstraaten, ruined, thrice bereaved; the Countess of Aremberg suddenly

widowed; and all those more obscure women who were orphaned, bereft of

husband and child, spurned from their dismantled homes to beg or starve.

Perhaps it was better to be a man and face a swift death in the open

field.

"But we have no choice," said the Countess, with a little smile that

creased her fresh wrinkled face; "we must do what falls to our lot and

not think of the difficulties."

"What falls to me?" asked Rénèe; "no one wants me, nor ever has since my

mother died. The Princess always hated me. I made no friends; my home,

my family, was swept away in a ruin that has pursued everything I have

loved or cared for ever since—my country, my faith, my——"

She checked herself suddenly and went pale.

"... Your love?" finished the Countess softly. "Surely you have loved

some one?"

Rénèe hesitated a moment then answered in a low voice—

"Yes, I loved. Some one who is not of my station and who hardly knows my

name nor my face. He—he went to the war, and he, like all, is quite

ruined now and quite desolate. Probably I shall never see him again."

She stopped suddenly and faced the Countess, her warm rich beauty

glowing in the grey air against the grey background of garden wall and

castle.

"That is my story and my life," she said. "What would you do with such a

life, Madame?"

Truly the Countess did not know; her own years had been so full that she

could not picture an empty existence.

"You cannot understand," added Rénèe, "what it is to mourn the loss of

what you never had."

"You will love again," said the Countess, whose outlook was eminently

practical and sane, "or at least you will take a husband, and then your

life will be full."

"Some women love once only, alas for them!" answered Rénèe, "perhaps it

is a foolishness, but one cannot change one's heart."

Then she shrank into herself and was once more enfolded in reserve

deeper than before, as if afraid of having said too much.

The sun had disappeared now, to be seen no more that day, and dark

clouds full of rain or perhaps snow closed over the sky. The two women

returned to the castle, which was cheerful with the light of great wood

fires and pleasant with the sound of children playing.

By the hooded chimney-piece of the dining-room, where the meal was being

already prepared, sat Vanderlinden, the Elector Augustus' alchemist. He

had been sent by his master, who still placed implicit faith in his

charts and tables, to persuade Count John that further exertions on the

behalf of the Netherlands were useless, and that the stars plainly

indicated that the Prince should return to Germany and not risk his

fortunes further.

It was strange to Rénèe to see the old man and recall how she had last

seen him at the brilliant Leipsic wedding, and to think of all that had

gone between, and how that famous marriage had ended, and yet how, in a

circle, things had come round, and how Augustus was still consulting the

stars and casting horoscopes and charts, and the alchemist still

searching for the Philosopher's Stone and only a little greyer and more

bent than before.

His talk was still of his experiments; outside events had touched him

very little, and he took but a slight interest in the tasks of

fortune-telling the Elector, his patron, set him. His eyes were still

fixed on the Great Discovery, the _magnum opus_—eternal gold, eternal

youth, eternal health—and in the pursuit of this object, for which he

had lost both gold, youth, and health, he was as eager and as sanguine

as he had ever been.

He remembered Rénèe, and asked if she still had the charm he had given

her; she showed it to him instantly, her only ornament, hidden in the

folds of her cambric vest.

She asked the old man if he had heard of Duprès, and he told her calmly,

without surprise, that the skryer, after escaping from the bloody rout

of Jemmingen, had returned to him at Dresden and begged to be taken into

his old master's service.

"They always return at length these restless rascals," added

Vanderlinden. "And I have taken him back, for he is clever, and when the

mood is on him can raise the spirits in the crystal."

So Duprès' tale had ended in a circle too, and he was back again at his

old employment under his old master; somehow Rénèe was glad that he was

not in Cologne.

The Countess of Nassau joined the two as they stood and talked by the

fire.

"Well, Magister," she said, "do you still hope to find the Philosopher's

Stone?"

"I do not despair at all, Your Excellency," he answered quietly.

"But if there is no such stone?" asked the Countess.

He smiled as one who cannot restrain his amusement at the foolishness of

the ignorant.

"It has been discovered, Madame, many times," he answered gently.

"And always lost again?"

"And always lost."

"That is strange, Magister, that more care was not taken to preserve

such a secret."

"Ah, Madame, it is too great a thing to be lightly imparted from one man

to another; it can only be attained after much labour, much suffering,

prayer, and humiliation."

"It would change the world," said Rénèe, and she thought of the Prince

and how gold was all the difference between success and failure. William

had failed through lack of it; for that reason Alva might fail too.

"It would be a terrible power," added the Countess thoughtfully.

"Perhaps it is as well that it is not often discovered."

The old man stroked his beard and looked into the fire silently; he

seemed so humble, so serene, so insignificant, that Rénèe wondered why

he was so eager for gold and power. Then she thought that perhaps he

cared for neither, and that he had pitted himself against this secret as

William had pitted himself against Philip, and that in both it was not

the thought of the reward that urged them on to undertake tasks

seemingly impossible, but the glory of the struggle, the mighty pleasure

of overcoming, the ultimate hope of attainment.

"And my sons?" asked Juliana of Stolberg; "what disastrous prophecies

have you made against the House of Nassau?"

Vanderlinden came from his dreams with a sigh.

"They might all be safe if they would be warned," he said. "Your

Excellency heard that an astrologer warned Count Hoorne not to go to

Brussels? And yet he went and died."

"A brave man cannot take these warnings," said the Countess stoutly. "It

is not for Princes and leaders to count the cost of the steps they make,

nor to think of their own lives."

"Then my charts and tables are useless," replied the alchemist.

"They please the Elector," said Juliana.

The alchemist was silent; he knew himself that his prophecies did little

more than amuse his master.

"You shall speak to Count John, as the Elector bade you," resumed the

Countess, "but you will not suppose that any one can turn back the Count

nor his brothers from what they have set their hands to."

She spoke with pride and courage, but sorrowfully, as one who sees

clearly and unfalteringly ahead and sees nothing but grief and trouble.

With an unconscious gesture of patience she folded her hands together

and looked at the window against which big drops of rain were beginning

to splash.

Her thoughts had returned to her three defeated sons at Strasburg, as

the alchemist's thoughts had returned to the Elixir of life and wealth.

Rénèe, standing between them, felt forgotten by both; she, too, was

thinking of Strasburg and of the man there disbanding his troops in

humiliation and failure.

CHAPTER X

THE ABBESS

It was a day in early spring—spring, yet sharp and chill with

winter—that the three penniless and defeated Nassau Counts rode through

France to offer their swords—all they had now to offer—to the Prince de

Condé who was upholding the Protestant cause in France.

Eight thousand of their men had been slain during the campaign, thirty

thousand had been disbanded at Strasburg, and a little handful of

cavalry had elected to follow the fortunes of the three adventurers, for

the exiled, landless, and ruined brothers were now no better in the eyes

of Europe.

With all their strenuous exertions and the energetic help of Count John,

they had not been able to even half pay the troops.

William had personally undertaken to discharge this debt from the first

money he could command, and solemnly promised, that if he should return

alive from Condé's army still penniless, he would surrender his person

as hostage for their money.

Before he left Germany he endeavoured to come to a meeting with his

wife; but Anne could not or would not move, and it was without seeing

her again that he left his native country to take service under a

foreign flag.

Granvelle, snug in Rome, laughed; Alva celebrated in Brussels an

extravagantly arrogant open triumph; Philip triumphed quietly within his

own cold narrow heart.

So ended the first struggle between William of Orange and the power of

Spain; so, stripped even of fame and glory, laughed at by his enemies,

despaired of by his friends, did he, who had been one of the greatest

and most magnificent Princes of his time, ride into exile.

Yet neither William nor his brothers were gloomy; there was a music in

their souls, a fire in their blood, that ever kept them from melancholy;

even when they spoke of Adolphus or Hoogstraaten, it was with an

affectionate smile, almost gaily, as they knew these dead would have

wished them to speak.

Skirting Switzerland the little company passed into Franche Comté, and

one of their first halting-places was near Besançon.

The morning after they had pitched their tents William was riding slowly

through the fields which were beginning to be faintly coloured with the

first trembling spring flowers.

A little thicket of hawthorn concealed the high road, and beyond the

meadows woods sloped over undulating valleys and gently rising hills;

numberless birds were singing in the little copse, and the sky was a

delicate azure veiled with milk-white clouds; it was the first day of

real spring, of the awakening of the earth, of the return of the promise

of life, increase, and abundance.

William had not been long alone in his musing progress through the

fields when he was joined by Count Henry.

This youth, in his green vesture, his little helmet with the long,

single heron's feather, with his gay carriage, his handsome face and

eager expression, was as bright as the morning, as pleasant as the early

spring.

He spoke to his brother with a little laugh, as if greatly amused.

"There is a party of travellers who are afraid of us! They have sent a

messenger to know if they may safely pass along the road where we are

encamped."

William, too, smiled.

"Give them all assurances, Henry," he answered, "that we are not

robbers, even if we are outlaws."

"Will you not see the messenger?" asked the young Count. "They seem

people of distinction."

The two turned back across the fields to the outskirts of the camp where

the messenger waited; he was a young Frenchman, well set up and armed,

he seemed a squire or upper servant.

"This is the Prince of Orange," said Henry.

The fellow pulled off his cap.

"I salute Your Highness," he said rather defiantly. "And, as your

intentions in this country are not known, I am here to know if the

ladies under my care may pass your encampment?"

"You should need no assurance," replied the Prince coldly. "You know who

I am."

The Frenchman remained obstinate, though he flushed a little under the

rebuke.

"The ladies I escort are nuns—an abbess and her train," he replied, "and

Your Highness is a heretic and rumoured to be joining Condé——"

"Ah," smiled William. "You think the heretics war on women as the

Papists do? Go and tell your mistress that she has my word for her

safety," he added carelessly.

The man left them and galloped back to the road.

"Who is the abbess?" asked William of his brother. "Have you seen her?"

"No, only a cloud of women and servants on mules in the distance, all

chattering with fright. I think the abbess is some great lady on a visit

to a noble kinswoman."

The Prince was returning to the camp when Louis galloped up, begging him

to see the nuns go by.

"Let us salute them," he said, "and show them that heretics are not

boors."

The three brothers rode back to the road, skirting the hawthorn copse,

and reined up under a delicate group of young beech trees.

A little dust, a little chatter and trampling, jingle and clatter of

harness, and the cavalcade came into view, preceded by the stout French

man-at-arms and a number of armed men-servants.

Directly behind them and riding in front of a group of nuns came the

abbess.

She was mounted on a fine white palfrey, her habit was largely white

though she wore a black cloak; doeskin gloves covered her hands, and she

guided the horse with glittering scarlet reins.

On her breast sparkled a large gold cross, and a rosary of carved gold

beads hung at her waist cord.

She sat very upright, in no way hampered by the full robes which

concealed her figure and fell over the horse almost to the ground.

Her attention was instantly attracted by the three young men under the

trees; she raised her hand for the procession to halt, and said in a

very sure clear voice—

"Is one of these gentlemen the Prince of Orange?"

As she named the great heretic the nuns shuddered and murmured; the men,

though they halted obediently, frowned. William came forward a pace from

his brothers; his slight figure, partially armed in steel, sat

motionless on his grey horse; he was bare-headed, and his hair blew

across his forehead; every line of his dark tired face was clear in the

unshaded sunlight.

"I am he, Madame," he answered, and he looked at her curiously.

The abbess returned his gaze steadily; there was in her look the same

serene steadiness as had sounded in her voice.

She was very young, little more than a child, though the white framing

her face, the demure nun's robe, gave her an air of gravity; her face

was pale and delicate, the features irregular and attractive, the mouth

sweet, the eyes large, dark, beautiful, and wistful.

There was wistfulness in her tone when she spoke again.

"I have heard so much of Monseigneur, even in our convent. I thank

Monseigneur for his courtesy in allowing our passage."

When she spoke thus, gravely in her pretty French, she was exquisitely

charming, like a child masking in an elder's gown, so little did she

seem to suit her habit.

"We are but soldiers of fortune, Madame," returned the Prince; "it is

not for you to thank me—this is your country."

An elderly nun rode up to the young abbess and quickly whispered to her

that it was indecorous to hold converse with the champion of the

heretics and one going to join the rebels against the King.

The abbess listened without a blush, then again turned her serene steady

gaze on the Prince.

"I am Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke de Montmorency, and

Abbess of Joüarrs," she said, "so you will understand, Monseigneur, why

I cannot longer speak with you."

William understood; the Duke de Montmorency was one of the hottest

Catholic nobles and one of the chiefs of the party against which Condé

was struggling.

"I have been an abbess since I was twelve," continued the nun, "and know

very little of the world—but I may say, God keep you, and have no stain

on my conscience."

Without waiting for an answer she touched up her horse and passed on,

the little train of nuns rapidly following.

The Prince was almost startled by the earnestness of the abbess's last

words, which seemed full of vivid meaning.

"Had she not been a nun and Montmorency's daughter," he said, "I should

have thought she blessed us."

"It is a sweet woman," remarked Louis, "that they have stifled in that

habit."

The Prince watched the nuns go their way until the turn of the winding

road had hidden them, then went back to the camp, to go his way of exile

and ruin and loneliness.

He pulled at the hawthorn boughs as he passed, and thought of Anne of

Saxony.

"I certainly am not fortunate," he remarked, with a sudden smile.

"There is the future," said Louis hopefully.

"Ah yes," answered the Prince. "The future and the past—in both there is

encouragement, though the present be sad. Our task is clear before us

and we are young."

"And if we die young, God will be pitiful," said Henry gravely, "and

forgive us our sins because we were not wise."

Louis thought of Adolphus and of the inscription on the blood-sprinkled

banner that had wrapped him, "_Nunc aut nunquam, recuperare aut mori_."

William too had recalled his dead brother when Henry spoke. He believed

that the coming years held the same fate for all of them, that neither

they nor any who followed them would escape the end which befell those

who defied Philip—the end which had already overtaken so many besides

the young Nassau.

But though the Prince of Orange was one who loved life, he was neither

regretful nor afraid.

_Printed by_

MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED,

_Edinburgh_

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE VIPER OF MILAN

I WILL MAINTAIN

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH

GOD AND THE KING

THE QUEST OF GLORY

A KNIGHT OF SPAIN

THE GOVERNOR OF ENGLAND

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical

errors.

2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.