“Scarce five minutes. Cursed chance!”
“You must go back to the burgomaster at once,” said Dierich Brower.
“To what end?”
“No matter; come!” and he hurried them to the Stadthouse.
Ghysbrecht Van Swieten was not the man to accept a defeat.
“Well,” said he, on hearing the ill news, “suppose he is gone. Is he mounted?”
“No.”
“Then what hinders you to come up with him?”
“But what avails coming up with him! There are no hostelries on the road he is gone.”
“Fools!” said Ghysbrecht, “is there no way of emptying a man's pockets but liquor and sleight of hand?”