Some months had gone by, and Alkmaar, that heroic little city of the north, had turned the flood of Spanish victory.  Full of shame and rage, the armies of Philip and of Valdez marched upon Leyden, and from November, 1573, to the end of March, 1574, the town was besieged.  Then the soldiers were called away to fight Louis of Nassau, and the leaguer was raised till, on the fatal field of Mook Heath, the gallant Louis, with his brother Henry and four thousand of their soldiers, perished, defeated by D’Avila.  Now once more the victorious Spaniards threatened Leyden.

In a large bare room of the Stadthuis of that city, at the beginning of the month of May, a man of middle-age might have been seen one morning walking up and down, muttering to himself as he walked.  He was not a tall man and rather thin in figure, with brown eyes and beard, hair tinged with grey, and a wide brow lined by thought.  This was William of Orange, called the Silent, one of the greatest and most noble of human beings who ever lived in any age; the man called forth by God to whom Holland owes its liberties, and who for ever broke the hideous yoke of religious fanaticism among the Teuton races.

Sore was his trouble on this May morning.  But last month two more of his brothers had found death beneath the sword of the Spaniard, and now this same Spaniard, with whom he had struggled for all these weary years, was marching in his thousands upon Leyden.

“Money,” he was muttering to himself.  “Give me money, and I will save the city yet.  With money ships can be built, more men can be raised, powder can be bought.  Money, money, money—­and I have not a ducat!  All gone, everything, even to my mother’s trinkets and the plate upon my table.  Nothing is left, no, not the credit to buy a dozen geldings.”

As he thought thus one of his secretaries entered the room.

“Well, Count,” said the Prince, “have you been to them all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And with what success?”

“The burgomaster, van de Werff, promises to do everything he can, and will, for he is a man to lean on, but money is short.  It has all left the country and there is not much to get.”

“I know it,” groaned Orange, “you can’t make a loaf from the crumbs beneath the table.  Is the proclamation put up inviting all good citizens to give or lend in this hour of their country’s need?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Count, you can go; there is nothing more to do.  We will ride for Delft to-night.”

“Sir,” said the secretary, “there are two men in the courtyard who wish to see you.”

“Are they known?”

“Oh yes, perfectly.  One is Foy van Goorl, who went through the siege of Haarlem and escaped, the son of the worthy burgher, Dirk van Goorl, whom they did to death yonder in the Gevangenhuis; and the other a Friesland giant of a man called Red Martin, his servant, of whose feats of arms you may have heard.  The two of them held a shot tower in this town against forty or fifty Spaniards, and killed I don’t know how many.”