Jacqueline of the Carrier Pigeons | Page 6

in the Netherlands, and especially Leyden, to return to his service and he will extend to them full forgiveness for all their crimes. He declares that if any will lay down their arms, surrender themselves, and become his loyal subjects once more, that they shall receive his pardon and all shall be forgotten. He has authorized General Valdez to say that if the city will surrender at once, that the citizens shall be shown every mercy." No sooner had the burgomaster ceased to speak, than old Jan Van Buskirk raised his voice:
"It is a trap! Believe not in it!"
"Yes, yes! It is a trap!" stormed the multitude. "We will have none of it! We will die to the last man, before we will surrender!"
"What right has that wretch of a Spanish King to offer us pardon!" growled Gysbert to his sister and Jan. "He forgive us, indeed! And it is he that has been doing all the wrong and committing all the crimes. Many thanks to him, truly!"
"But what message is it your pleasure that I shall send in answer to this?" asked the burgomaster.
"Tell him," roared Jan, who seemed to have constituted himself spokesman for the people, "that the fowler plays sweet notes on his pipe, while he spreads his net for the birds!"
"Aye, aye!" assented the crowd approvingly. "Tell him that!" "'Tis a good answer," commented Van der Werf, "and I will send it as it stands. Now who will take advantage of this pardon for himself? Let any who may feel so inclined come forward at once, and they shall be sent out of the gates to go their chosen ways in peace."
Another tense silence ensued. Each person stood his own ground stanchly, and watched for any sign of wavering in his neighbor. Presently from out the crowd there pushed a stout old man who finally gained the open space before the burgomaster.
"I am a brewer of Utrecht," he announced. "I do not live in this city and have no desire to maintain the siege. I wish to take advantage of the King's pardon!"
"Be it as you wish, neighbor," answered Van der Werf. "Here are the necessary papers. You shall pass out unmolested, at the opening of the gate." The man received the papers, while the crowd looked on, muttering in contemptuous undertones.
"And I," declared another who had shoved his way to the front, "will also receive the pardon, if you please." Jacqueline grasped her brother's arm convulsively.
"Dirk Willumhoog!" he whistled softly. "The city will be well rid of him, to be sure, but what a coward!"
When the two men had been furnished with the proper credentials, the burgomaster commanded them to proceed at once to the principal city gate, where they would be dismissed to the Spanish army outside. But as they made their way down the wide Breede Straat, the fury of the crowd broke loose.
"Shame! Shame!" hissed the following throng. "Shame on the cowards who desert their countrymen to join the despicable ranks of Spain! Thrice shame on their accursed heads!" Straight to the walls of the city the multitude pursued the fleeing men, now actually trembling for their lives. The two children and old Jan, caught in the swirling throngs, found themselves almost on the heels of the fugitives. Jan grunted and spluttered his disapproval, but Gysbert seemed fairly boiling over in his wrath, especially against Dirk Willumhoog.
The gate having been reached, it was opened but the smallest crack available by the guarding soldiers. The brewer from Utrecht squeezed his bulky form with difficulty through the narrow aperture, followed by the howls of the crowd. But Gysbert could contain himself no longer. Breaking away from his sister's grasp, he rushed up to the remaining fugitive and shouted in his face:
"Shame on thee, Dirk Willumhoog, for a dog of a coward! Shame! shame!" The man turned on him with so savage a countenance that Jacqueline could not repress a frightened scream. The cry attracted the man's attention to her also.
"You shall rue this, you two!" he vociferated. "You shall rue this day forever, - and for more reasons than you now think! You shall rue it!" And the closing gate shut his wicked features and his impotent rage from their sight.
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GYSBERT BECOMES A JUMPER

CHAPTER III
GYSBERT BECOMES A JUMPER
"TURN thy face a little more to the light, Jacqueline. I want to get a full profile."
In the little living-room of the house in Belfry Lane, sat the two children, on an evening a month after the events of the last chapter. On one side of the table Vrouw Voorhaas bent over a huge pile of mending, casting an occasional loving and solicitous glance at her two charges, but otherwise quiet, silent and reserved. She was a woman of large, almost masculine proportions, and her muscular frame