“Have you read the letter from your cousin Brant?” asked Lysbeth, changing the subject.

“No,” answered Dirk, “what with daggers, swoonings, and scoldings it slipped my mind,” and drawing the paper from his tunic he cut the silk and broke the seals.  “I had forgotten,” he went on, looking at the sheets of words interspersed with meaningless figures; “it is in our private cypher, as Elsa said, or at least most of it is.  Get the key from my desk, son, and let us set to work, for our task is likely to be long.”

Foy obeyed, returning presently with an old Testament of a very scarce edition.  With the help of this book and an added vocabulary by slow degrees they deciphered the long epistle, Foy writing it down sentence by sentence as they learned their significance.  When at length the task was finished, which was not till well after midnight, Dirk read the translation aloud to Lysbeth and his son.  It ran thus: 

“Well-beloved cousin and old friend, you will be astonished to see my dear child Elsa, who brings you this paper sewn in her saddle, where I trust none will seek it, and wonder why she comes to you without warning.  I will tell you.

“You know that here the axe and the stake are very busy, for at The Hague the devil walks loose; yes, he is the master in this land.  Well, although the blow has not yet fallen on me, since for a while I have bought off the informers, hour by hour the sword hangs over my head, nor can I escape it in the end.  That I am suspected of the New Faith is not my real crime.  You can guess it.  Cousin, they desire my wealth.  Now I have sworn that no Spaniard shall have this, no, not if I must sink it in the sea to save it from them, since it has been heaped up to another end.  Yet they desire it sorely, and spies are about my path and about my bed.  Worst among them all, and at the head of them, is a certain Ramiro, a one-eyed man, but lately come from Spain, it is said as an agent of the Inquisition, whose manners are those of a person who was once a gentleman, and who seems to know this country well.  This fellow has approached me, offering if I will give him three-parts of my wealth to secure my escape with the rest, and I have told him that I will consider the offer.  For this reason only I have a little respite, since he desires that my money should go into his pocket and not into that of the Government.  But, by the help of God, neither of them shall touch it.

“See you, Dirk, the treasure is not here in the house as they think.  It is hidden, but in a spot where it cannot stay.

“Therefore, if you love me, and hold that I have been a good friend to you, send your son Foy with one other strong and trusted man—­your Frisian servant, Martin, if possible—­on the morrow after you receive this.  When night falls he should have been in The Hague some hours, and have refreshed himself, but let him not come near me or my house.  Half an hour after sunset let