A dozen furious hammers soon dashed man and cross to pieces.
There was now nothing left standing in the church but the two huge figures of the malefactors hanging on their crosses.
Awful and ghostly they looked with that blank space between them, behind them darkness stained with the red candlelight, around them ruin, and above them the mysterious dark loftiness of the mighty roof.
With bitter irony the heretics left the two thieves in their places, then, having completely devastated and destroyed everything within the cathedral, they swept out into the summer darkness.
The night was yet young, and there were thirty more churches in Antwerp; triumphantly singing a hymn of praise they dashed to the nearest, from which the trembling priests had already fled.
As Duprès left the church, overcome by irresistible temptation, he snatched up a gold vessel from the floor.
Before he could conceal the treasure a man near him saw it and smote it out of his hand, at the same time striking the skryer a blow that made him stagger.
"No thieves in this company!" he shouted; "we are not thieves but avengers!"
CHAPTER XI
THE PRINCE RESIGNS
Ever since he had, on the fall of Cardinal Granvelle, risen to prominence in the governing of the Netherlands, William of Orange had endeavoured to steer between party and party, to behave with moderation and temperance, to extend one hand to the Catholics and one to the Reformers and lead both to concord.