He raised himself upon his knees, and for a moment their eyes met for the last time.
“Do you remember?” she said in a quiet voice, “many years ago, in this very room, after you had bought me at the cost of Dirk’s life, certain words I spoke to you? Now I do not think that it was I who spoke, Juan de Montalvo.”
And she swept past him and through the wide doorway.
Red Martin stood upon the balcony gripping the man Ramiro. Beneath him the broad street was packed with people, hundreds and thousands of them, a dense mass seething in the shadows, save here and again where a torch or a lantern flared showing their white faces, for the moon, which shone upon Martin and his captive, scarcely reached those down below. As gaunt, haggard, and long-haired, he stepped upon the balcony, they saw him and his burden, and there went up such a yell as shook the very roofs of Leyden. Martin held up his hand, and there was silence, deep silence, through which the breath of all that multitude rose in sighs, like the sighing of a little wind.
“Citizens of Leyden, my masters,” the Frisian cried, in a great, deep voice that echoed down the street, “I have a word to say to you. This man here—do you know him?”
Back came an answering yell of “Aye!”
“He is a Spaniard,” went on Martin, “the noble Count Juan de Montalvo, who many years past forced one Lysbeth van Hout of this city into a false marriage, buying her at the price of the life of her affianced husband, Dirk van Goorl, that he might win her fortune.”
“We know it,” they shouted.
“Afterwards he was sent to the galleys for his crimes. He came back, and was made Governor of the Gevangenhuis by the bloody Alva, where he brought to death your brother and past burgomaster, Dirk van Goorl. Afterwards he kidnapped the person of Elsa Brant, the daughter of Hendrik Brant, whom the Inquisition murdered at The Hague. We rescued her from him, my master, Foy van Goorl, and I. Afterwards he served with the Spaniards as a captain of their forces in the siege of Haarlem yonder—Haarlem that fell three days ago, and whose citizens they are murdering to-night, throwing them two by two to drown in the waters of the Mere.”
“Kill him! Cast him down!” roared the mob. “Give him to us, Red Martin.”