It was agreed that all the conspirators should assemble four days later at the Hague on Sunday, the 5th February, at the inn of the “Golden Helmet.”  The next day, Monday the 6th, had been fixed by Stoutenburg for doing the deed.  Van Dyk, who had great confidence in the eloquence of William Party, the Walloon wool manufacturer, had arranged that he should make a discourse to them all in a solitary place in the downs between that city and the sea-shore, taking for his theme or brief the Clearshining Torch of Slatius.

On Saturday that eminent divine entertained his sister and her husband Gerritsen, Jerome Ewouts, who was at dinner but half informed as to the scope of the great enterprise, and several other friends who were entirely ignorant of it.  Slatius was in high spirits, although his sister, who had at last become acquainted with the vile plot, had done nothing but weep all day long.  They had better be worms, with a promise of further reward and an intimation she said, and eat dirt for their food, than crawl in so base a business.  Her brother comforted her with assurances that the project was sure to result in a triumph for religion and Fatherland, and drank many healths at his table to the success of all engaged in it.  That evening he sent off a great chest filled with arms and ammunition to the “Golden Helmet” at the Hague under the charge of Jerome Ewouts and his three mates.  Van Dyk had already written a letter to the landlord of that hostelry engaging a room there, and saying that the chest contained valuable books and documents to be used in a lawsuit, in which he was soon to be engaged, before the supreme tribunal.

On the Sunday this bustling conspirator had John Blansaert and William Party to dine with him at the “Golden Helmet” in the Hague, and produced seven packages neatly folded, each containing gold pieces to the amount of twenty pounds sterling.  These were for themselves and the others whom they had reported as engaged by them in Leyden.  Getting drunk as usual, he began to bluster of the great political revolution impending, and after dinner examined the carbines of his guests.  He asked if those weapons were to be relied upon.  “We can blow a hair to pieces with them at twenty paces,” they replied.  “Ah! would that I too could be of the party,” said van Dyk, seizing one of the carbines.  “No, no,” said John Blansaert, “we can do the deed better without you than with you.  You must look out for the defence.”

Van Dyk then informed them that they, with one of the Rotterdam sailors, were to attack Maurice as he got out of his coach at Ryswyk, pin him between the stables and the coach, and then and there do him to death.  “You are not to leave him,” he cried, “till his soul has left his body.”

The two expressed their hearty concurrence with this arrangement, and took leave of their host for the night, going, they said, to distribute the seven packages of blood-money.  They found Adam Blansaert waiting for them in the downs, and immediately divided the whole amount between themselves and him—­the chimney-sweeper, tailor, and fustian worker, “firm as trees and fierce as lions,” having never had any existence save in their fertile imaginations.