"Let him come here," he said.
One of the officers suggested that perhaps the fellow was one of Alva's spies or assassins.
"Oh, that!" exclaimed William wearily.
Death was the least of the terrors with which he had to contend; he knew that probably Alva schemed to murder him, and it left him as indifferent as did the thought of Anne's treachery.
As soon as the officers left him he retired so completely into his own thoughts again that he forgot the incident, and it was with a slight start that he looked up to see a stranger, escorted by two soldiers, standing before the tent entrance.
This man stood very humbly bowing, as if too overcome by some emotion to speak, and William, interested in him, bade him enter, and dismissed the soldiers.
The stranger was of middle life with the appearance of humble birth and poor means; his clothes, though exquisitely neat, were shabby and thin; his features were pinched with cold, and maybe privation.
He stood crushing his hat to his breast and gazing at the Prince with an expression of utter confusion and awe.
William addressed him in Flemish, kindly asking him his errand.
The other continued to gaze at him with that look of wonder and reverence that was embarrassed but not at all stupid, rather a kind of amaze, as if he could not credit that this slim young man, with the pale dark face, wrapped in the plain blue mantle could be the great Prince of Orange.