"Treachery!" cried some of the Orangists, "do not heed him, van Rycke."
But of a truth the cry was not repeated quite so insistently this time. Alva's last argument was an unanswerable one. Pestilence these days was a more formidable foe than the finest artillery wielded by a powerful enemy: there were over two thousand dead lying unburied in the city at this hour: as the tyrant said very truly, these would take a terrible revenge. And there was something too in the sanctity of the Lord's Day which touched the hearts of these men who were deeply religious and devout and had a profound respect for the dictates of the Church. Most of them were Catholics--the importance of attending Mass on the Lord's Day on pain of committing a deadly sin weighed hard upon their conscience. Alva was quick to note the advantage which he had already gained, and when the first dissentient voice among the Orangists was heard to say: "A truce can do no harm and 'twere sacrilege to fight on the Lord's Day," he broke in quickly:
"Nay! 'tis not fighting ye would do, but murder. Aye! murder on the Day of the Holy Redeemer who died that ye should live.... My men are Catholic to a man! not one of them but would far rather let himself be butchered than commit a deadly sin. Rebels, who have outraged your King, to-morrow morning the church bells will be calling the faithful to the Holy Sacrifice: the truce which you refuse to hold with us we will grant you of our own free will. We will not fight you on the day of the feast of the Holy Redeemer. But to-morrow every Spaniard and every Walloon in our armies will go unarmed and present himself at your church doors. I--even I--with my captains and the members of the King's Council will attend Mass at the church of St. Baafs and we will be unarmed, for we shall have placed ourselves under the care of the Holy Redeemer Himself. And now tell thy soldiers, rebel, tell them that Spaniards and Walloons will be in the churches of Ghent in their thousands and that they will be defenceless save for the armour of prayer which will encompass them as they kneel before the altar of God!"
"And in the meanwhile," retorted van Rycke, "ye will be sending to Dendermonde and Alost and Antwerpen: and when after the evening Angelus we take up arms once more against your tyranny, there will be five thousand more Spaniards at our gates."
"By the Holy Redeemer whom I herewith invoke," said Alva solemnly and raised his hand above his head with a gesture of invocation, "I swear that no messenger of mine shall leave the city before ye once more take up arms against your King. I swear that no messenger of mine hath left this city for the purpose of getting help from any garrison town, and may my soul be eternally damned if I do not speak the truth."
Those who were present at this memorable interview declare that when Alva registered this false and blasphemous oath a curious crimson light suddenly appeared in the East--so strong and lurid was it that the perjurer himself put up his hand for a second or two as if blinded by the light. Philip de Lannoy, seigneur de Beauvoir, assures us that the light was absolutely dazzling and of the colour of blood, but that he took it as a warning from God against the sacrilege of fighting on this holy day, and that it caused him to add the weight of his influence with Mark van Rycke to grant the truce which the Spaniards desired.
Undoubtedly, the solemn oath spoken by the tyrant who was such a devout and bigoted Catholic greatly worked upon the feelings of the Orangists: never for a moment did the suspicion of the oath being a false one enter their loyal heads: nor must they be blamed for their childish confidence in a man who had lied to them and deceived them so continuously for the past five years. They were so loyal themselves, such a trap as Alva was setting for them now was so far from their ken, that it was impossible for them to imagine such appalling treachery: as for the sanctity of an oath, they would as soon have thought of doubting the evidence of their own eyes.
Mark van Rycke, it is true, held out to the last. He knew these Spaniards better than those simple burghers did: not in vain had he spent his best years in the uncongenial task of worming out their secret plans--their treacherous devices--over tankards of ale and games of hazard in Flemish taverns. He mistrusted them all, he mistrusted Alva above all! he had no belief in that execrable monster's oath.
"God is on our side!" he said quietly, "we'll bury our dead when we can, and pray when God wills. He'll forgive the breaking of His Sabbath for the justice of our cause.
"They are weary of the fight," he added obstinately, "we are not."