The dame turned white as a sheet, and was near fainting on the spot.  It was the first imprudence Elsje had committed.  The good woman recovered somewhat of her composure by a strong effort however, and instantly went with Elsje to the rear of the house.

“Master! master!” cried Elsje, rapping on the chest.

There was no answer.

“My God! my God!” shrieked the poor maid-servant.  “My poor master is dead.”

“Ah!” said Madame Daatselaer, “your mistress has made a bad business of it.  Yesterday she had a living husband.  Now she has a dead one.”

But soon there was a vigorous rap on the inside of the lid, and a cry from the prisoner: 

“Open the chest!  I am not dead, but did not at first recognize your voice.”

The lock was instantly unfastened, the lid thrown open, and Grotius arose in his linen clothing, like a dead man from his coffin.

The dame instantly accompanied the two through a trapdoor into an upper room.

Grotius asked her if she was always so deadly pale.

“No,” she replied, “but I am frightened to see you here.  My lord is no common person.  The whole world is talking of you.  I fear this will cause the loss of all my property and perhaps bring my husband into prison in your place.”

Grotius rejoined:  “I made my prayers to God before as much as this had been gained, and I have just been uttering fervent thanks to Him for my deliverance so far as it has been effected.  But if the consequences are to be as you fear, I am ready at once to get into the chest again and be carried back to prison.”

But she answered, “No; whatever comes of it, we have you here and will do all that we can to help you on.”

Grotius being faint from his sufferings, the lady brought him a glass of Spanish wine, but was too much flustered to find even a cloak or shawl to throw over him.  Leaving him sitting there in his very thin attire, just as he had got out of the chest, she went to the front warehouse to call her husband.  But he prudently declined to go to his unexpected guest.  It would be better in the examination sure to follow, he said, for him to say with truth that he had not seen him and knew nothing of the escape, from first to last.

Grotius entirely approved of the answer when told to him.  Meantime Madame Daatselaer had gone to her brother-in-law van der Veen, a clothier by trade, whom she found in his shop talking with an officer of the Loevestein garrison.  She whispered in the clothier’s ear, and he, making an excuse to the officer, followed her home at once.  They found Grotius sitting where he had been left.  Van der Veen gave him his hand, saying: 

“Sir, you are the man of whom the whole country is talking?”

“Yes, here I am,” was the reply, “and I put myself in your hands—­”

“There isn’t a moment to lose,” replied the clothier.  “We must help you away at once.”