Adolphus pointed to them.
"Like two souls departing," he said, putting back the thick lock of hair the evening breeze blew across his eyes. "Do you remember the skryer who foretold our fortunes at Leipsic?" he added.
"Yes," said Louis, with a little smile.
"He is in the camp. He followed us from Groningen, and asked me leave to join us. He was with Brederode, he said, even to his death, then wandered in our track from Germany. Do you think he can really read portents in the stars?"
The young Protestant general answered slowly—
"It does not seem to me that God would permit His heavens to show forth signs for mummers to profit by; yet these fellows have a grain of truth in their predictions—though maybe of the Devil; did not this man say in Leipsic we should all die a bloody death? And who among us then thought of war?"
"He told me yesterday," said Adolphus, "that for three nights there had been a falling star above Groningen, and that Aremberg's hours were counted."
"God's will be done," said Louis soberly; he gave another glance at his camp and then they turned into the convent where their simple meal was ready.
They were about to rise from the table when an officer brought into their presence a young peasant, a tall blond Frieslander, who told them that he had been running all day before Aremberg's army to warn them of the enemy's approach.
"The Stadtholder is coming straight on you," he said simply. "He has with him many foreign soldiers and the six cannon of Groningen."