"I can see the lights of a city far away on our right," she said. "From the direction in which we have been going and the ground which we have covered I should guess that city to be Delft."
"Delft!" exclaimed Gilda, smothering a louder scream.
The driver had just pulled up his horses, allowing them to go at a walk so as to restore their wind and ease them for awhile. Gilda tried her best to peer through the darkness. All that she could see were those lights far away on the right which proclaimed the distant city.
A chill struck suddenly to her heart. Ben Isaje had lied! Why? She was not being taken to his house which was situate half a league outside Rotterdam ... then whither was she being taken? What new misery, what new outrage awaited her now?
The lights of the distant city receded further and further away from her view, the driver once more put his horses at a trot, the sledge moved along more smoothly now: it seemed as if it were going over the surface of the river. Delft was being left behind, and the sledge was following the course of the Schie ... on toward Ryswyk....
The minutes sped on, another quarter of an hour, another half hour, another hour in this dread suspense. The driver was urging his horses unmercifully: he gave them but little rest. It was only when for a few brief moments he put them at walking pace, that Gilda heard—all around her as it seemed—that metallic click of skates which told her that the sledge was surrounded by men who were there to watch over her and see that she did not escape.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE CAPTIVE LION
Beresteyn was sitting at the table in the weighing-room of the molens: his elbows rested on the table, and his right hand supported his head; in the feeble light of the lanthorn placed quite close to him, his face looked sullen and dark, and his eyes, overshadowed by his frowning brows, were fixed with restless eagerness upon the narrow door.