CHAPTER VI
THE CONSPIRATORS
The Prince and Mr. Bromley rode straight from M. de Witt’s house to the Groote Kerk.
William pulled his hat over his eyes; his person was not as yet well known at the Hague, and though his beautiful horse attracted notice he avoided the recognition of the well-dressed crowds that thronged the streets.
Leaving Mr. Bromley without, he entered the church by the little back door that stood always open.
Bareheaded he opened the railing round the entrance and passed slowly into the body of the church.
Some of the high-set windows were shaded by green curtains; through others the sun streamed in clear, golden, slanting lines across the whitewashed walls. In the open space where the altar once stood a shaft of light dazzled and fell in a little square of brilliance on the stone pavement.
There were no splendid monuments; here and there a plain tablet grimly decorated with a skull or a cluster of bones, yellowing in the marble.
In every place along the stiff, high-backed pews were green hassocks, a Prayer-book, and a Bible primly arranged; round the stern pulpit the seats of the elders with their larger Bibles and the green markers hanging from between the heavy covers.