But a great many were silent--despair had gripped them with its icy talon--the hopelessness of it all had damped their enthusiasm.
"Five thousand fresh troops," they murmured, "and there are less than four thousand of us all told."
"We cannot conquer," came from Peter Balde's friends at the west end of the church, "let us at least take our revenge!"
"Yes! Revenge! Death to the Walloons!" they cried.
"Revenge! yes!" exclaimed Mark van Rycke. "Let us be revenged on the liar, the tyrant, the perjurer, let us show him no mercy and extort from him by brute force that which he has refused us all these years--civil and religious freedom."
"Van Rycke, thou art raving!" broke in the men who stood nearest to him--some of them his most ardent supporters. "Alva by nightfall will have three times the numbers we have. The gates will be opened to his fresh troops."
"We must seize the Kasteel and the gates before then!" he retorted.
"How can we? We made several assaults yesterday. We have not enough men."
"We have half an hour wherein to increase their numbers."
"Thou art raving," they cried.