"And until that hour we remain as we are. Our guard at the gates...."
"Our prisoners in our hands."
"And may God guard thee," concluded Alva unctuously.
"May God have mercy on thy soul if thou hast lied to us," said Mark van Rycke quietly.
To this Alva made no reply, but his grim face looked in no way troubled. Special absolution even for speaking a false oath could easily be obtained, alas! these days by any Duke of Alva or other tyrant powerful enough to demand it; and no doubt the Lieutenant-Governor, sent to subdue the rebellious Low Countries, was well provided with every kind of dispensation which embodied the principle that "the end justifies the means!"
He wheeled his horse round and, wholly callous and unconcerned, he rode back slowly over the bridge.
As soon as the last of the Spaniards had filed under the gate-house of the Kasteel and the drawbridge was once more raised, Mark van Rycke turned with unwonted peremptoriness to his friends who were crowding round him, eagerly approving of what he had done.
"Van Deynse," he said curtly, "to-morrow at dawn, see that your musketeers are massed inside the ruins of the Tanners' Guild House, and you, Laurence, place three hundred of your picked archers under the cover of the Vish Mart. Lannoy, your pikemen beneath the arcades of the Abbey opposite St. Baafs, and you, Groobendock, yours in the doorways of the houses opposite St. Pharaïlde, and every one of you under arms. Let the Spaniards pray in peace if they have not lied. But at the first sign of treachery, remember your wives and your daughters and do not spare the murderers of your children or the desecrators of your homes."
CHAPTER XVII
TRUTH AND PERFIDY