“I would lay my life that the Baron Van Arenberg has had something to do with it,” exclaimed Berthold. “If you will let me I will get Albert and we will go to his house. We shall soon judge by the way he receives the intelligence whether he knows anything about the matter.” Berthold received the leave he requested, while the burgomaster himself forthwith sent a band of watchmen round in all directions through the town in search of Jaqueline, while he called at numerous houses and visited all the friends on whom he could rely to obtain their assistance in the search. The first to make their appearance at his house were Albert and Berthold.
“We were right,” they exclaimed. “The baron’s servants know nothing of him; he left home at an early hour this afternoon, and has not since returned. Most of his domestics, who were ‘Glippers,’ have long ago made their escape. The watchmen in the course of the night came in with equally unsatisfactory reports—not a trace of the Vrouw Jaqueline had been discovered.”
“May God protect my child,” exclaimed the burgomaster, bowing his head. “She is beyond human aid.”
No one would have believed from his appearance the next morning, when he left his home to attend to his magisterial duties, that a deep domestic sorrow had overtaken him. He started as he quitted his door, for there, on the very threshold, lay a dead body, thus placed as if to reproach him for his stern determination in holding out.
“We shall all soon be like him who lies there,” cried many voices.
“It were better to have yielded than have been compelled to endure such suffering,” shouted others.
Unheeding them, the burgomaster proceeded to a triangular space in the centre of the town, into which many of the principal streets opened, and in which stood the church of Saint Pancras, two ancient lime trees growing on either side of the entrance now stripped bare of leaves by the famishing people. Ascending the steps, Adrian Van der Werf stopped while he regarded the numberless angry faces turned towards him. For a moment he stood there, his figure tall and imposing, his visage dark and haggard, his eye yet tranquil and commanding, and then waving his broad-brimmed hat for silence, he exclaimed, “What would you, my friends? Why do you murmur that we do not break our vows and surrender our city to the Spaniards, a fate more horrible than the agony which she now endures? I tell you I have made a vow to hold the city, and may God give me strength to keep it. I can die but once, whether by your hands, by the enemy’s, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me, not so that of the city entrusted to our care. I know that we shall soon starve, but starvation is preferable to the dishonoured death which is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not. My life is at your disposal. Here is my sword, plunge it into my breast and divide my flesh among you, take my body to appease your hunger, but expect no surrender as long as I remain alive.”
The words of the brave burgomaster inspired a new courage in the hearts of those who heard him. Shouts of applause and defiance rose from the famishing, but enthusiastic crowd, they hurried to the ramparts to hurl renewed defiance at the enemy.
“Ye call us rat-eaters and dog-eaters,” they cried; “so long as ye hear a dog bark or a cat mew within the walls ye may know that the city holds out; when the last hour has come, we will with our own hands set fire to the houses and perish in the flames rather than suffer our homes to be polluted and our liberties to be crushed.”