"One country, one people, one kindred," rejoined Mark with solemn earnestness, "henceforth there will be neither Flemings nor Walloons, just Netherlanders standing shoulder to shoulder to crush the tyrant of us all!"
"Netherlanders! Orange and Liberty!" cried Walloons and Flemings in unison.
"Give them back their own arms, provosts," commanded Mark, "our untrained men have not known how to use them! and follow me, friends! We have not gathered our reinforcements together yet. In half an hour we shall have two thousand brothers under our flag!"
"Long live Leatherface! To arms, brothers!" were the last shouts which rang through the hall, ere Mark van Rycke led his followers away to the nearest guild-house and then to the next, where two thousand Walloon prisoners were by the magic of his patriotism and his enthusiasm transformed into two thousand friends.
VI
Once more the roar of artillery and of musketry fills the air. It is long before the evening Angelus has begun to ring, but from far away the news has come to every captain at the city gates that reinforcements are on the way from Dendermonde. No one can respect a truce which hid the blackest perfidy ever perpetrated by a tyrannical master against a brave people. As soon as the news has filtrated into the heart of the city the Orangists rush to their arms, reinforced by two thousand trained troops; their battle cry becomes triumphant.
"Netherlands! Orange! and Liberty!" resounds defiantly from end to end of the city.
The besieging force rush the Kasteel! they sow the open tract of ground around the moat with their heroic dead; again and again they rush for the breach: culverins and falconets upon the ramparts are useless after a while: and a shower of heavy stones falls upon the plucky assailants. There are five hundred Walloon bowmen now who know how to shoot straight, and some musketeers who vie with the Spaniards for precision. They cover the advance of the halberdiers and the pikemen, who return to the charge with the enthusiasm born of renewed hope.
The Brügge gate has fallen, the Waalpoort is in the insurgents' hands: Captain Serbelloni at the Braepoort is hard pressed, and up in the Meeste Toren of the Kasteel Alva paces up and down like a caged tiger.
"Bracamonte or nightfall!" he cries with desperate rage, for he cannot understand why the Dendermonde troops are detained.