By Pike and Dyke: a Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic

by G. A. Henty

Ned did not wait to hear the result of the examination, but at once passed on out of the gate with the country people unconnected with the captive. A minute or two later the latter with his friends issued forth. Ned kept about halfway between the two parties until he reached a lane branching off from the road in the direction in which he wished to go. Following this for a mile he came into the Ghent road, and had no difficulty in finding the place where he had hidden his money. Going behind a stack of corn, a short distance away, he changed his clothes; and pushing the female garments well into the stack, went on his way again, well pleased to be once more in male attire.

The clothes fitted him well, and were of a sober colour, such as a trusty retainer of a noble house would wear upon a journey. He retraced his steps until again on the road to Antwerp, and followed this until he came to the clump of trees. Here the count's servant was awaiting him with two horses. He smiled as Ned came up.

"If it had not been my own clothes you are wearing, I should not have known you again," he said. "The count bade me ask you if you had need of money? If so, I was to hand you this purse."

"Give my thanks to the count," Ned replied, "and say that I am well furnished."

"Not in all respects, I think," the man said.

Ned thought for a minute.

"No," he said. "I have no arms."

The man took a brace of pistols from the holsters of his own horse and placed them in those on Ned's saddle, and then unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to Ned.

"It is ill travelling unarmed in the Netherlands at present," he said. "What with the Spaniards and the Germans, and the peasants who have been driven to take to a robber's life, no man should travel without weapons. The count bade me give you these, and say he was sure you would use them well if there should be need."

Ned leaped into the saddle, and with sincere thanks to the man galloped off towards Antwerp. Unless ill fortune should again throw him in the way of Von Aert he now felt safe; and he had no fear that this would be the case, for they would be devoting their whole energy to the search for him in Brussels. He burst into a fit of hearty laughter as he rode along, at the thought of the fury the councillor must have been thrown into when, upon his return home, he discovered that he had given away the wrong packet of letters. He would have been angry enough before at the escape of the captive he was himself watching, and the loss thereby of the means upon which he had reckoned to discover the ownership of the letters, and so to swell the list of victims. Still he doubtless consoled himself at the thought that he was sure before many hours to have his prisoner again in his power, and that, after all, annoying as it was, the delay would be a short one indeed. But when he took the packet from his pocket, and discovered that he had given up the all important documents, and had retained a packet of blank paper, he must have seen at once that he was foiled. He might recapture the prisoner, torture him, and put him to death; but his first step would of course have been to destroy the precious letters, and there would be no evidence forthcoming against those for whom they were intended, and who were doubtless men of considerable standing and position, and not to be assailed upon the mere avowal extracted by torture from a boy and unsupported by any written proofs.