“Once you were my wife,” he pleaded; “being a woman, does not that weigh with you?”

“Once he was my husband, being a man did that weigh with you?  The last word is said.  Take him, Martin, to those who deal with murderers.”

Then that look came upon Montalvo which twice or thrice before Lysbeth has seen written in his face—­once when the race was run and lost, and once when in after years she had petitioned for the life of her husband.  Lo! it was no longer the face of a man, but such a countenance as might have been worn by a devil or a beast.  The eyeball started, the grey moustache curled upwards, the cheek-bones grew high and sharp.

“Night after night,” he gasped, “you lay at my side, and I might have killed you, as I have killed that brat of yours—­and I spared you, I spared you.”

“God spared me, Juan de Montalvo, that He might bring us to this hour; let Him spare you also if He will.  I do not judge.  He judges and the people,” and Lysbeth rose from her chair.

“Stay!” he cried, gnashing his teeth.

“No, I stay not, I go to receive the last breath of him you have murdered, my son and yours.”

He raised himself upon his knees, and for a moment their eyes met for the last time.

“Do you remember?” she said in a quiet voice, “many years ago, in this very room, after you had bought me at the cost of Dirk’s life, certain words I spoke to you?  Now I do not think that it was I who spoke, Juan de Montalvo.”

And she swept past him and though the wide doorway.

Red Martin stood upon the balcony gripping the man Ramiro.  Beneath him the broad street was packed with people, hundreds and thousands of them, a dense mass seething in the shadows, save here and again where a torch or a lantern flared showing their white faces, for the moon, which shone upon Martin and his captive, scarcely reached those down below.  As gaunt, haggard, and long-haired, he stepped upon the balcony, they saw him and his burden, and there went up such a yell as shook the very roofs of Leyden.  Martin held up his hand, and there was silence, deep silence, through which the breath of all that multitude rose in sighs, like the sighing of a little wind.

“Citizens my Leyden, my masters,” the Frisian cried, in a great, deep voice that echoed down the street, “I have a word to say to you.  This man here—­do you know him?”

Back came an answering yell of “Aye!”

“He is a Spaniard,” went on Martin, “the noble Count Juan de Montalvo, who many years past forced one Lysbeth van Hout of this city into a false marriage, buying her at the price of the life of her affianced husband, Dirk van Goorl, that he might win her fortune.”

“We know it,” they shouted.