"Not unless we hold him as he holds us--not unless we have him at our mercy."
"Then what can we do? what can we do?"
"Do?" he reiterates for the hundredth time to-day, "do? Fight to the last man, die to the last man, until God, wearied of the tyrant's obstinacy, will crush him and give us grace."
"But we cannot win in the end."
"No! but we can die as we have lived, clean, undaunted, unconquered."
"But our wives, our daughters?"
"Ask them," he retorts boldly. "It is not the women who would lick the tyrant's shoes."
The hour drags wearily on. In imagination every one inside and around the cathedral follows the burghers on their weary pilgrimage. Half an hour to walk to the Kasteel, half an hour for the audience with the Duke, half an hour to return ... unforeseen delay in obtaining admittance ... it may be two hours before they return. Great many of the men have returned to the gloomy task of burying the dead, others to that of clearing the streets from the litter which encumbers them: but even those who work the hardest keep their attention fixed upon the cathedral and its approach.
Van Rycke had suggested that the great bell be rung when the burghers came back with the Duke's answer, so that all who wished could come and hear.
III