At the threshold Foy turned to look at Hendrik Brant.  He was standing by the table, the light shining full upon his pale face and grizzled head, about which it seemed to cast a halo.  Indeed, at that moment, wrapped in his long, dark cloak, his lips moving in prayer, and his arms uplifted to bless them as they went, he might well have been, not a man, but some vision of a saint come back to earth.  The door closed and Foy never saw him again, for ere long the Inquisition seized him and a while afterwards he died beneath their cruel hands.  One of the charges against him was, that more than twenty years before, he had been seen reading the Bible at Leyden by Black Meg, who appeared and gave the evidence.  But they did not discover where his treasure was hidden away.  To win an easier death, indeed, he made them a long confession that took them a still longer journey, but of the truth of the matter he knew nothing, and therefore could tell them nothing.

Now this scene, so strange and pathetic, ended at last, the five of them were in the darkness of the street.  Here once more Foy and Red Bow clung to each other, and once more the arm of Martin was about the neck of her who seemed to be the serving-maid, while ahead, as though he were paid to show the way, went the pilot.  Soon footsteps were heard, for folk were after them.  They turned once, they turned twice, they reached the bank of a canal, and Hans, followed by Red Bow and her sister, descended some steps and climbed into a boat which lay there ready.  Next came Martin, and, last of all, Foy.  As he set foot upon the first step, a figure shot out of the gloom towards him, a knife gleamed in the air and a blow took him between the shoulders that sent him stumbling headlong, for he was balanced upon the edge of the step.

But Martin had heard and seen.  He swung round and struck out with the sword Silence.  The assassin was far from him, still the tip of the long steel reached the outstretched murderous hand, and from it fell a broken knife, while he who held it sped on with a screech of pain.  Martin darted back and seized the knife, then he leapt into the boat and pushed off.  At the bottom of it lay Foy, who had fallen straight into the arms of Red Bow, dragging her down with him.

“Are you hurt, master?” asked Martin.

“Not a bit,” replied Foy, “but I am afraid the lady is.  She went undermost.”

“Mother’s gifts are good gifts!” muttered Martin as he pulled him and the girl, whose breath had been knocked out of her, up to a seat.  “You ought to have an eight-inch hole through you, but that knife broke upon the shirt.  Look here,” and he threw the handle of the dagger on to his knees and snatched at the sculls.

Foy examined it in the faint light, and there, still hooked above the guard, was a single severed finger, a long and skinny finger, to which the point of the sword Silence had played surgeon, and on it a gold ring.  “This may be useful,” thought Foy, as he slipped handle and finger into the pocket of his cloak.