"Ah, it is good to be here!" exclaimed Gysbert. "Art thou not glad we came, Jacqueline? And now let me ask a question. Answer truly! What hast thou had to eat to-day?"
"Oh, I had plenty!" answered the girl evasively. "The weather is so hot that I cannot eat much."
"Now, look thou here!" he replied. "For breakfast this morning we had some watery gruel of our pigeon grain, and a thin slice of malt-cake apiece. I saw thee eat the gruel, but the cake disappeared quickly in some mysterious way. Jacqueline, didst thou save it to take to Jan?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so," she faltered, cornered so cleverly that she could not deny it.
"Very well!" replied Gysbert with decision. "Then I will tell him the next time I go there, that thou art starving thyself to feed him!"
"No, no, Gysbert!" she cried in genuine alarm, "thou must not do that! It would grieve him unto death, for I have told him that we have plenty."
"Ah! does that worry thee? Then if thou wilt do something to please me, I promise not to tell him."
"Yes, yes," said Jacqueline eagerly. "Anything, Gysbert, will I do if thou wilt only keep that secret!" The boy did not answer, but running to the wall of the fortress, lifted a good-sized stone and took from the hollow underneath something which he brought to his sister. It was the legs and body of a wild rabbit which had been prepared and cooked evidently before an open fire.
"Why, Gysbert!" exclaimed Jacqueline in astonishment. "Where didst thou get this?"