Then in the sudden ecstasy of relief and joy, the great Prince hid his face in his hands and wept.

Thus it came about that the riches of Hendrik Brant, when Leyden lay at her last gasp, paid the soldiers and built the fleets which, in due time, driven by a great wind sent suddenly from heaven across the flooded meadows, raised the dreadful siege and signed the doom of Spanish rule in Holland.  Therefore it would seem that not in vain was Hendrik Brant stubborn and foresighted, that his blood and the blood of Dirk van Goorl were not shed in vain; that not in vain also did Elsa suffer the worst torments of a woman’s fear in the Red Mill on the marshes; and Foy and Martin play their parts like men in the shot-tower, the Gevangenhuis and the siege, and Mother Martha the Sword find a grave and rest in the waters of the Haarlem Meer.

There are other morals to this story also, applicable, perhaps, to our life to-day, but the reader is left to guess them.

Scene the Second

Leyden is safe at last, and through the broken dykes Foy and Martin, with the rescuing ships, have sailed, shouting and red-handed, into her famine-stricken streets.  For the Spaniards, those that are left of them, are broken and have fled away from their forts and flooded trenches.

So the scene changes from warring, blood-stained, triumphant Holland to the quiet city of Norwich and a quaint gabled house in Tombland almost beneath the shadow of the tall spire of the cathedral, which now for about a year had been the home of Lysbeth van Goorl and Elsa Brant.  Here to Norwich they had come in safety in the autumn of 1573 just before the first siege of Leyden was begun, and here they had dwelt for twelve long, doubtful, anxious months.  News, or rather rumours, of what was passing in the Netherlands reached them from time to time; twice even there came letters from Foy himself, but the last of these had been received many weeks ago just as the iron grip of the second leaguer was closing round the city.  Then Foy and Martin, so they learned from the letter, were not in the town but with the Prince of Orange in Delft, working hard at the fleet which was being built and armed for its relief.

After this there was a long silence, and none could tell what had happened, although a horrible report reached them that Leyden had been taken, sacked, and burnt, and all its inhabitants massacred.  They lived in comfort here in Norwich, for the firm of Munt and Brown, Dirk van Goorl’s agents, were honest, and the fortune which he had sent over when the clouds were gathering thick, had been well invested by them and produced an ample revenue.  But what comfort could there be for their poor hearts thus agonised by doubts and sickening fears?

One evening they sat in the parlour on the ground floor of the house, or rather Lysbeth sat, for Elsa knelt by her, her head resting upon the arm of the chair, and wept.