Vanderdecken, finding that no answer was returned, indulged in strong invective, and then decided upon measures certainly in themselves by no means undecided.

There was part of a small stack of dry fodder standing not far from the house, and under the wall a pile of wood for firing.  With these Vanderdecken resolved upon setting fire to the house, and thus, if he did not gain his relic, he would at least obtain ample revenge.  He brought several armfuls of fodder and laid them at the door of the house, and upon that he piled the fagots and logs of wood, until the door was quite concealed by them.  He then procured a light from the steel, flint, and tinder, which every Dutchman carries in his pocket, and very soon he had fanned the pile into a flame.  The smoke ascended in columns up to the rafters of the roof while the fire raged below.  The door was ignited, and was adding to the fury of the flames, and Philip shouted with joy at the success of his attempt.

“Now, miserable despoiler of the dead—­now, wretched thief, now you shall feel my vengeance,” cried Philip, with a loud voice.  “If you remain within, you perish in the flames; if you attempt to come out you shall die by my hands.  Do you hear, Mynheer Poots—­do you hear?”

Hardly had Philip concluded this address when the window of the upper floor furthest from the burning door was thrown open.

“Ay,—­you come now to beg and to entreat; but no—­no,” cried Philip—­who stopped as he beheld at the window what seemed to be an apparition, for, instead of the wretched little miser, he beheld one of the loveliest forms Nature ever deigned to mould—­an angelic creature, of about sixteen or seventeen, who appeared calm and resolute in the midst of the danger by which she was threatened.  Her long black hair was braided and twined round her beautifully-formed head; her eyes were large, intensely dark, yet soft; her forehead high and white, her chin dimpled, her ruby lips arched and delicately fine, her nose small and straight.  A lovelier face could not be well imagined; it reminded you of what the best of painters have sometimes, in their more fortunate moments, succeeded in embodying, when they would represent a beauteous saint.  And as the flames wreathed and the smoke burst out in columns and swept past the window, so might she have reminded you in her calmness of demeanour of some martyr at the stake.

“What wouldst thou, violent young man?  Why are the inmates of this house to suffer death by your means?” said the maiden, with composure.

For a few seconds Philip gazed, and could make no reply; then the thought seized him that, in his vengeance, he was about to sacrifice so much loveliness.  He forgot everything but her danger, and seizing one of the large poles which he had brought to feed the flame, he threw off and scattered in every direction the burning masses, until nothing was left which could hurt the building but the ignited door itself; and this, which as yet—­for it was of thick oak plank—­had not suffered very material injury, he soon reduced, by beating it, with clods of earth, to a smoking and harmless state.  During these active measures on the part of Philip, the young maiden watched him in silence.