“Enough, enough!  Bread, bread!  Give us bread!” was shrieked and shouted around him, and threatening weapons and stones were raised; but a carpenter, whom he knew, and who had hitherto faithfully upheld the good cause, advanced saying in measured accents, in his deep voice:  “This can go on no longer.  We have patiently borne hunger and distress in fighting against the Spaniards and for our Bible, but to struggle against certain death is madness.”

Peter, pale and agitated, gazed at the mother, the child, the sturdy workman and the threatening, shrieking mob.  The common distress, which afflicted them and so many starving people, oppressed his soul with a thousand-fold greater power.  He would fain have drawn them all to his heart, as brothers in misfortune, companions of a future, worthier existence.  With deep emotion, he looked from one to the other, then pressed his hand upon his breast and called to the crowd, which thronged around him: 

“Here I stand.  I have sworn to faithfully endure to the end; and you did so with me.  I will not break my oath, but I can die.  If my life will serve you, here I am!  I have no bread, but here, here is my body.  Take it, lay hands on me, tear me to pieces.  Here I stand, here I stand.  I will keep my oath.”

The carpenter bent his head, and said in a hollow tone:  “Come, people, let God’s will be done; we have sworn.”

The burgomaster quietly entered his friend’s house.  Fran Van Hout had seen and heard all this, and on the very same day told the story to Maria, her eyes sparkling brightly as she exclaimed:  “Never did I see any man so noble as he was in that hour!  It is well for us, that he rules within these walls.  Never will our children and children’s children forget this deed.”

They have treasured it in their memories, and during the night succeeding the day on which the burgomaster acted so manly a part, a letter arrived from the Prince, full of joyous and encouraging news.  The noble man had recovered, and was striving with all his power to rescue brave Leyden.  The Beggars had cut the Landscheiding, their vessels were pressing onward—­help was approaching, and the faithful citizen who brought the letter, had seen with his own eyes the fleet bringing relief and the champions of freedom, glowing with martial ardor.  The two Van der Does, by the same letter, were appointed the Prince’s commissioners in place of the late Herr Van Bronkhorst.  Van der Werff no longer stood alone, and when the next morning “Father William’s” letter was read aloud and the messenger’s news spread abroad, the courage and confidence of the tortured citizens rose like withering grass after a refreshing rain.

But they were still condemned to long weeks of anxiety and suffering.

During the last days of September they were forced to slaughter the cows hitherto spared for the infants and young mothers, and then, then?

Help was close at hand, for the sky often reddened, and the air was shaken by the roar of distant cannon; but the east wind continued to prevail, driving back the water let in upon the land, and the vessels needed a rising flood to approach the city.