What could she mean, I asked myself, when she had gone in. Was there anything in her suggestion? Would Clarence follow us hither? If so, and if he should come in time, would he have power to help us, using such mysterious influence, Spanish or English, as he seemed to possess? And if he could help us, would it be better to fall into his hands than into those of the exasperated Santonese? I thought the Duchess would say "No!"
So it mattered not what I answered myself. I hoped, now Master Lindstrom had appeared, that the women would be allowed to go free; and it seemed to me that to surrender to Clarence would be to hand over the Duchess to her enemy simply that the rest of us might escape.
Master Lindstrom returned while I was still considering this, and, observing the same precautions as before, I bade him join me. "Well?" I said, not so impetuously, I hope, as Mistress Anne, yet I dare say with a good deal of eagerness. "Well, what do they say?" For he was slow to speak.
"I have bad news," he answered gently.
"Ah!" I ejaculated, a lump which was due as much to rage as to any other emotion rising in my throat. "So they will give us no terms? Then so be it! Let them come and take us."
"Nay," he hastened to answer. "It is not so bad as that, lad. They are fathers and husbands themselves, and not lanzknechts. They will suffer the women to go free, and will even let me take charge of them if necessary."
"They will!" I exclaimed, overjoyed. I wondered why on earth he had hesitated to tell me this. "Why, that is the main point, friend."
"Yes," he said gravely, "perhaps so. More, the men may go too, if the tower be surrendered within an hour. With one exception, that is. The man who struck the blow must be given up."
"The man who struck the blow!" I repeated slowly. "Do you mean--you mean the man who cut the patrol down?"
"Yes," he said. He was peering very closely at me, as though he would learn from my face who it was. And I stood thinking. This was as much as we could expect. I divined, and most truly, that but for the honest Dutchman's influence, promises, perhaps bribes, such terms would never have been offered to us by the men who hours before had driven us to hold as if we had been vermin. Yet give up Master Bertie? "What," I said, "will be done to him? The man who must be given up, I mean?" Master Lindstrom shook his head. "It was an accident," I urged, my eyes on his.