Stoutenburg laughed aloud.
"How little you—her own brother—know her," he retorted. "Gilda resigned? Gilda content to let events shape themselves—such events as those which she heard us planning in the Groote Kerk on New Year's Eve? Why, my friend, Gilda will never be resigned, she will never be content until she hath moved earth and heaven to save the Stadtholder from my avenging hand!"
"But what can she do now? Ben Isaje is honest in business matters. It would not pay him to play his customers false. And I have promised him two thousand guilders if he keeps her safely as a prisoner of war, not even to be let out on parole. Ben Isaje would not betray me. He is too shrewd for that."
"That may be true of Ben Isaje himself; but what of his wife? his sons or daughters if he have any? his serving wenches, his apprentices and his men? How do you know that they are not amenable to promises of heavy bribes?"
"But even then...."
"Do you not think that at Rotterdam every one by now knows the Prince's movements? He passed within half a league of the town yesterday; there is not a serving wench in that city at this moment who does not know that Maurice of Nassau slept at Delft last night and will start northwards to-morrow."
"And what of that?" queried Beresteyn, trying to keep up a semblance of that carelessness which he was far from feeling now.
"Do you believe then that Gilda will stay quietly in the house of Ben Isaje, knowing that the Prince is within four leagues of her door?... knowing that he will start northwards to-morrow ... knowing that my headquarters are here—close to Ryswyk ... knowing in fact all that she knows?"
"I had not thought on all that," murmured Beresteyn under his breath.
"And there is another danger too, friend, greater perhaps than any other," continued Stoutenburg vehemently.