"Sit down, Jan," said Stoutenburg curtly, "you must be dog-tired. Have you had enough to eat and drink?"
"I thank you, my lord, I have eaten my fill," replied Jan, "and I am not so tired now that I have had some rest."
"Sit down," reiterated Stoutenburg peremptorily, "and you too, my good Nicolaes," he added as he offered a chair to his friend. "Let me just tell you the news which Jan has brought, and which should make you forget even your present just wrath, so glorious, so important is it."
He went up to a cabinet which stood in one corner of the room, and from it took a bottle and three pewter mugs. These he placed on the table and filled the mugs with wine. Then he drew another chair close to the table and sat down.
"Jan," he resumed, turning to Beresteyn, "left the Stadtholder's camp at Sprang four days ago. He has travelled the whole way along the frozen rivers and waterways only halting for the nights. The news which he brings carries for the bearer of such splendid tidings its own glorious reward; Jan, I must tell you, is with us heart and soul and hates the Stadtholder as much as I do. Is that not so, Jan?"
"My father was hanged two years ago," replied Jan simply, "because he spoke disparaging words of the Stadtholder. Those words were called treason, and my father was condemned to the gallows merely for speaking them."
Stoutenburg laughed, his usual harsh, mirthless laugh.
"Yes! that is the way justice is now administered in the free and independent United Provinces," he said roughly; "down on your knees, ye lumbering Dutchmen! lick the dust off the boots of His Magnificence Maurice of Nassau Prince of Orange! kiss his hand, do his bidding! give forth fulsome praise of his deeds!... How long, O God? how long?" he concluded with a bitter sigh.
"Only for a few more days, my lord," said Jan firmly. "The Stadtholder left his camp the same day as I did. But he travels slowly, in his sledge, surrounded by a bodyguard of an hundred picked men. He is sick and must travel slowly. Yesterday he had only reached Dordrecht, to-day—if my information is correct—he should sleep at Ijsselmunde. But to-morrow he will be at Delft where he will spend two days at the Prinsenhof."
"At Delft!" exclaimed Stoutenburg as he brought his clenched fist down upon the table. "Thank God! I have got him at last."