When he has finished speaking, the man with the mask who sits at the head of the table at the top of the long, low room, asks quietly:
"Then he refused?"
All the five men who this morning had knelt humbly before the tyrant, exchange silent glances, after which Messire Deynoot says firmly:
"He refused."
"Nothing will save our city," insisted Leatherface solemnly, "except if we track the Prince of Orange and bring him bound and a prisoner to the feet of Alva?"
"Nothing! save Orange's person will move Alva from his resolve."
Leatherface sits for a moment quite still, with his head buried in his hands: and the vast crowd now assembled in the room waits in breathless silence for his next word. There are far more than two thousand men here this night; the number has indeed been more than doubled. The deadly danger which threatens the city has already brought over three thousand new recruits to the standard.
Suddenly with a resolute gesture Leatherface draws his mask away and rises to his feet in full view of all the crowd.
"Mark van Rycke!" comes as one cry from several hundred throats.
"Aye!" he says with a light laugh, "your ne'er-do-well and frequenter of taverns was just the watch-dog of our noble Prince. Unknown I was able to render him some small service. Now that you are no longer called upon to throw me as a bait to the snarling lion, I'll resume mine own identity, and hereby ask you, if--knowing me for what I am--you still trust me to lead you to victory or to death?"