WHEN the crowd had dispersed from the door of the church of St. Pancras, and the heroic Burgomaster had gone home, Adrian stood there still, in the reaction that follows strong excitement. Feeling faint and weak, he thought he would go into the house of a friend and patient, who lived beside the church, and who might perhaps have a little wine to give him. So he knocked at the door, and receiving no answer, presently knocked again—knocked, at intervals, four times or five. He had begun to feel uneasy, when one of the city watchmen passed by. Knowing the doctor, as most people did, by sight, he stopped to say, ‘Have you not heard what has happened here, doctor? Not one in that house needs your help any more. Going my rounds this morning, I was hailed by a man who said he thought something was wrong; he had been knocking for half-an-hour without an answer. So we forced the door, and found no living thing within—father, mother, children, servants, all dead. We are coming back to-night to bury them.’
Adrian shuddered. He knew this was no solitary occurrence; more than once already had whole households been found dead—of plague, or famine, or both.
He sat down on the threshold of the house of death. He remembered vaguely that he had set out to visit his patients—but what use? The physician felt his work was done, his calling taken from him, by that mightier physician whose touch heals all earthly ills, and whose name is Death.
Probably he fainted as he sat there; he never knew. The next thing he was conscious of was a hand laid upon his shoulder. Looking up, he saw, Dirk before him, and his fears about Rosé-came back. ‘What is wrong?’ he asked.
‘Is it my wife?’
‘Oh no, Mynheer, the ladies are as usual; but they sent me to bid you come back at once, for’ —he bent down close to him and whispered in his ear— ‘we have food.’
The magic whisper brought Adrian to his feet. The body asserted its imperious sway; the sickening hunger-pain was gnawing his heart out, and for the moment the thought of a meal was absolute bliss.
‘Where? How?’ he asked, tottering and leaning on
Dirk for support.
‘That good Master Floriszoon searched the shelves again where he used to keep his drugs. He found behind one of them a hole in the wall, into which there had slipped a bag about the size of a child’s head. The rata being gone now, it was all right—and full of some grain, hard, and white, and long-shaped. He says the Indians eat it.’
‘Rice! That is excellent food! God be praised!’
‘He gave us five-sixths of it,’ Dirk continued. ‘He says he has only himself to think for now, and there are five of us.’ ‘But then, his old mother, whom he takes such care of?’
‘His mother died this morning,’ Dirk answered sadly.
‘It was before you went out, but he would not tell you. He brought us the food and the news together. He would do anything for the ladies, they have been so kind to her, he says. Come quickly, Mynheer, Mevrouw is cooking the rice.’
A few handfuls of rice, and a few gleams of hope, kept the little household alive for some days longer. The tidings of hope were brought to the city, appropriately, by a dove, in a letter from Admiral Boisot, promising that relief should come very soon—in a few days at farthest. The welcome missive was read publicly in the Market-place, and all the bells of all the churches rang out a joyous peal.
But Adrian heard the sound with a sinking heart; for he raised his sorrowful eyes, which had no light of hope in them, to the vanes on the steeples, and saw that now again they pointed steadily to the east. ‘While that wind lasts the ships cannot move,’ he said within himself. ‘Relief may come in the end, but it will come to a city of the dead.’
When he returned home that day he dared not look his wife or his sister in the face, for theirs were still bright with hope. He took little Roskĕ in his arms, and found her hot, feverish, and fretful. She was tired of playing, she said, laying her head down on his shoulder.
‘Then go to sleep, darling. Father will keep you in his arms.’
‘Oh, I can’t sleep; I am too hungry. I want the ships to come to us, with the bread.’
‘Then pray God to change the wind,’ said Adrian, in hopeless bitterness of soul.
But the child did pray, with all childhood’s faith and fervor, until a sleep, which her father well-nigh hoped might be the last, stole over her weary eyelids.
For three awful days the vanes still pointed to the east until the city grew almost silent in the depth of its despair: strength only remained for low inarticulate moans, and wailings that had no ear to hear them— upon earth. In the streets and the houses death was busy, but now the living did not weep any more for the dead, neither bemoaned them.
Death hovered over the house of Adrian, but as yet forbode to strike. He had now given up in despair the physician’s contest with the dread adversary, and spent his time either in a frantic search after Morsels of anything that could possibly be eaten, or in pilgrimages to the tower of St. Pancras, whence his longing eyes could see the ships of the deliverers stranded at the North As, while the shallow waters between mocked his despair, and would not rise. Only a few more inches needed to bear them onward! But; unless the wind changed, those inches were impossible.
On the evening of October 1, Adrian stood upon the tower, lost in melancholy thought. Suddenly he found his broad-leaved felt hat carried off his head, down to the roofs of the houses below. The wind was rising—that was nothing. But what was much—what was everything—the wind was changing. The joyful cries of the starved watchers around him proclaimed the fact. Neither he nor they could bear to quit the post of observation, although so weakened by long fasting that they had to cling to the masonry to avoid being swept away.
Ere midnight a cry arose: ‘It is the Equinoctial gale!’
‘It is blowing north-west! We are saved!’
Rapidly, even as they watched and waited, it veered round to the south-west. Better still! Little wrecked those weak and weary watchers that the keen, strong wind pierced them to the bone, besides threatening every moment to hurl them from their places. They exulted in its might. It was the wind of God! He was fighting for them at last!
Morning came. The October sun shone down upon a gray and seething mass of water in the distance, flecked with foam. The wind of God had brought the waves of His sea, filling first the channels of the Maas and Ysel, then sweeping over the whole land with mighty, thundering, resistless force, dashing furiously onward over dyke and causeway, and every other obstacle that opposed it.
Morning showed something else too. During the night the uproar of the storm had drowned the confused noise of battle; but with returning light the citizens saw that their friends had been fighting fiercely for them in the darkness. Spanish ships were drifting about helplessly, or sinking wrecked and crippled, while the light of blazing villages showed how their strong posts were taken or abandoned. How brightly gleamed the sun upon the brown ships of the Sea Beggars, as they sailed on triumphantly towards the two forts of Leydensdorp and Lammen—one little mile only from the gates of Leyden! Hope grew into rapture, when the flames, bursting from Leydensdorp, told that it too had been taken, and set on fire by the deliverers.
This sight brought Adrian home, to tell his household that rescue was at hand. It was time. There was absolutely no food now. The little party sat together, silent, with idle hands, as mourners sit beside their dead. Only, these were waiting for death themselves. Adrian thought Roskĕ very ill, and would have laid her in her little bed, but she did not care to leave her place, leaning on her mother’s breast.
Whilst he was talking with them, the aged pastor, whose church Rose and Marie usually attended, came in. He bore, carefully concealed beneath his cloak, a basket, out of which he took a small piece of bread and a flask of wine. After affectionate greetings, he explained that, ere their stores were quite spent, the Town Council had entrusted him with a little flour and a little wine for the administration of the Lord’s Supper. He had kept them faithfully for the purpose, resisting all agonies of starvation; but now, when a few hours must decide their fate one way or the other, he felt himself free to give what was left to the sick amongst his congregation, if it might perchance be the means of preserving life. He had heard there was a sick child in the, house; and, knowing the piety and faithfulness of Mevrouw Pernet and her sister, proposed to turn what—although he had a good hope in God’s mercy—might yet be their last meal upon earth into a sacred feast.
‘You speak well, Mynheer Pastor,’ said Adrian, ‘and I pray of you, so do as you have said. But as I do not feel my conscience free to partake of the sacred rite, I shall bid you farewell, only asking your leave to call my friend, Master Floriszoon, the apothecary, who dwells in the upper part of this house. He will take my place.’
In spite of the earnest remonstrances of his wife and sister, who would have had him share at least the bread and wine, Adrian went out again, and paced the silent streets, now almost deserted, nearly every one who could walk being either on the ramparts or on the tower of St. Pancras. He was long past any clear or consecutive thinking, but he wondered in a dull, aimless way, whether those waves were sweeping over the land at the bidding of the God Rose and the Pastor worshipped, or whether it was all pure chance and blind fate.
Meanwhile, prayer and faith and childlike resignation into the hands of the God they knew and loved, strengthened the hearts of those left behind, including the little child, even more than the morsel of bread and the few drops of wine strengthened their fainting frames.
Day wore to eventide. At nightfall another dove flew in bearing a message. This the Burgomaster read aloud in the great Square to a breathless multitude. It was bitterly disappointing. The Spaniards indeed had lost heavily, but they had concentrated their remaining forces in the strong fort of Lammen, the last bar to the entrance of the town. To the Admiral and the fleet this last bar seemed impregnable.
Nevertheless, on the following morning they would attempt to carry it. If they failed, they would then have done all that men could do for the relief of Leyden.
Having read this, the Burgomaster, without a word, led the way to the tower of St. Pancras, whither he was followed by the crowd. Adrian was among them, and Dirk joined him on the way. Van der Werf stood upon the tower, and stretching out his gaunt arms towards the ships of their preservers, cried aloud in his penetrating voice—
‘Yonder—behind that fort—are bread, meat and brethren in thousands. Shall all this be destroyed by the Spanish guns, or shall we rush to the rescue of our friends?’
A cry went up to the darkening sky, wrung from the deepest hearts of those despairing men.
‘We will tear down the fortress with our teeth and nails, ere we see the long-expected relief wrested from us thus!’
‘Good! Let all, who are of this mind follow Colonel Van der Does in a sortie from the Cow-gate at daybreak to-morrow.’
‘We will all be there,’ cried the citizens. ‘And if we fail,’ they added in their hearts, ‘may the Lord have mercy on our souls!’
Night fell—a night of blackest darkness, no moon, no star. Adrian found his way home with difficulty. Most of the crowd went home also, to prepare for the intended sortie.
Dirk lingered still on the tower, gazing through the darkness at the place where he knew the terrible Lammen Fort to be.
He did not want to go home. His loving eyes, which watched Roskĕ so tenderly, saw a look that day in the little face that turned his heart to stone. Surely one of the household at least must go, with all this agony! He had hoped that one might have been himself, who could so well be spared, but now he feared it was to be instead the best beloved, the treasure of all. The look on the young face of the dying Spaniard haunted his memory; he could not—no, he could not—go home to see that look on the face of Juffrouw Roskĕ. He would not go unless he could bring the food which might save her even yet. But what chance of that? None while yonder fort stood there, full of desperate Spaniards.
Dirk Willemszoon could hope in God now; the bond of despair was loosed from off his heart. He prayed, and found comfort in his prayer. God was good: that which He would do with them must be good also. If it was not His will to save them here and now, there was His heaven to look for, after brief suffering—suffering which, as the Englishman said, was but for a moment, and wrought out an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Thinking of that glory beyond, he fell unawares into a light sleep, leaning against the parapet of the tower.
A noise—sudden, great, and terrible, and sounding close to his ear, aroused him. Was it thunder? Was it the discharge of cannon? No; it was more like falling masonry. Had the Spaniards made a breach in the wall? Were they storming the town? He shook from head to foot, remembering Adrian’s awful vow. But still, he ought to go home—better for them to die all together. The ensuing silence, however, struck him with as much astonishment as the noise had done. If it was what he feared, other sounds would follow at once— ‘The voice of them that shout for mastery, and the voice of them that cry being overcome.’ But there was nothing of the kind. Dead silence followed, unbroken by a cry, a murmur. He stood and listened to the silence, in awe and wonder.
Presently his head felt cold, for the wind was blowing upon it. He put up his hand instinctively; his cap, Roskĕ’s gift, had fallen off. Though death was all around him, he could not lose that without a pang. He feared it had fallen over the parapet while he dozed; but as he moved his foot he touched something soft beside it, and found, to his great joy, that it was his lost treasure. He picked it up and put it on firmly, feeling as though its recovery was an omen for good. But what was he to do next? He had not the least idea; so he stayed where he was, looking out into the darkness, and listening for the sounds that never came. ‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘a great heap of gunpowder has exploded somewhere, either with friends or foes—but if so, should I not have seen the light?’
But even while he said it he did see, through the darkness, gleaming points of light. No glare to illumine the midnight; no blaze as of burning gunpowder—only faint flickering lights like wavering torches, mirrored fitfully in the waters beneath. ‘They are just where the Fort of Lammen stands,’ Dirk thought, peering through the darkness. Then, after a moment, ‘They are going from the Fort of Lammen! They are moving away—slowly—towards the south. At least, I think it is the south.’
A voice beside him, or within him, he knew not which, and he never knew, cried aloud ‘The fort is empty, the Spaniards have abandoned it!’ He stood transfixed, as if shot through with a bolt—but a bolt bringing life, not death. Then he made a wild, headlong rush in the dark, stumbling over stones, knocking against obstacles, falling down steps. But nothing stopped him. On, on he sped, down from the tower, along a street or two—making his way by instinct through the pitchy darkness, until he reached the house of the Burgomasters. A light was burning there, and a servant answered his summons. Yes, he could, see the Burgomaster; he had not retired to rest.
He was ushered into a sombre but stately room. A fire was burning on the hearth within the deep, tiled embrasure, and the red light, mingled with that of the lamp on the table, shone upon costly furniture of carved oak. But Dirk saw nothing save the face of the great Burgomaster—a face worn and wasted with famine, yet full of power and courage.
Van der Werf looked up from a heap of parchments he was examining, perhaps with a view to burning them if the Spaniards entered the town, and asked him what he wanted. Somehow the quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke calmed the spirit of the boy, and enabled to tell his tale with something like composure. The ever-watchful Burgomaster had heard the noise, of course, but he deemed it best to remain passive till the morning; any movement now would only create a panic, waste their strength, and diminish their chance of a successful sortie. Whatever it was, most certainly it was no assault of the Spaniards. But the lights? Vas Dirk clear about the position in which he had seen them, the direction in which they were moving?
Dirk repeated his story without wavering, adding eagerly, ‘I am right sure, your worship, ‘twas the Spaniards leaving the fort.’
The grave, stern facie relaxed into something like a smile at the boy’s simple confidence. ‘You think so?’ he said.
‘I think, your worship, that the Lord has looked unto the host of the Spaniards, and troubled them.’
‘Poor child!’ Then, after a pause: ‘My son, thou didst well to come to me, instead of giving the alarm and rousing the town. But go home now, sleep if thou canst; if not, pray for God’s mercy. Keep silence about what thou hast seen, for I doubt not ‘tis a trap the Spaniards have set to Jure us to destruction.’
‘But—if you please, your worship—’ he hesitated and stopped.
‘Speak on, my boy; fear nothing. I know thee for the brave lad who brought us tidings from the fleet, some three weeks ago.’
‘If it please your worship to let me go to the fort and try.’
The Burgomaster shook his head. ‘Twere throwing thy life away,’ he said.
‘The life of a poor boy,’ Dirk answered him, as he had done the Admiral. But Van der Werf was less hopeful or more scrupulous than Boisot; he would not send any one forth to certain death, he said.
At last Dirk flung himself at his feet, and implored him passionately to let him go. ‘Am I not—are not we all—dying already of starvation?’ he pleaded. ‘And I risk herein no one’s life but my own. Sir, for God’s sake, let me go!’
The Burgomaster yielded then. ‘Have thy will,’ he said; ‘and God prosper thee, brave boy! See, take this.’ He drew a ring from his finger, and gave it to him. ‘It will open the city gate for thee.’
Dirk demurred, with a scruple which might be thought rather superfluous, considering the peril in which they stood.
‘It is valuable,’ he said. ‘I might lose it.’
Again the Burgomaster smiled. He could smile now for—
‘Death was so near (them), life cooled from its heat.’
‘Is not thy life, which thou art risking, worth more than my ring?’ he said. ‘But thou must needs await the morning light.’
‘The first glimmer will do for me. I go, your worship. And if you see a cap of blue with a knot of orange in it wave from the top of Lammen you will know we are saved.’
He went forth; and, helped by the lights that shone from a few of the casements, made his way to the gate nearest the Lammen Fort. He found the guard in much excitement and alarm about the noise; but the lights they had not seen—probably from their position they could not. He showed them the Burgomaster’s ring, and a postern was opened for him immediately.
There was by this time just a faint glimmer of light, enough to keep him from falling into the nearest ditch—enough, too, to show him the Fort of Lammen, looking dark against the cold gray sky, scarce a hundred rods away. No light was seen, no sound heard from it.
Dirk never felt the ground beneath his flying feet till he paused at the entrance of the fort. The door stood wide open before him. He went in, no man forbidding him. No man was there, either to forbid or to welcome. The fort was deserted.
He sprang up to the very top, and stood there breathless. Then, taking off his cap—the blue cap with the orange knot—he waved it with all his might. The light was growing clearer now, so he hoped his signal would be seen, both in the city and in the fleet. He had to wait some time, and to repeat it often, ere he could be sure. At length a faint cheer from the one, and a hoarse shout of triumph from the other, told him that they knew.
But he must return quickly to the town, and bring more certain tidings. He slipped down ‘from his lofty post, and began rapidly to descend the spiral, ladder-like stair. As he passed an open door something moved him to turn in. He drew back—he almost fell down—fairly overpowered by the most delicious sensation he had ever known in his life. Surely all the spices of Araby had never breathed such fragrance! What could it be?
He rallied his strength to explore the room. Over a smoldering fire on the hearth hung an iron pot. Some Spanish soldier had been preparing a late supper or an early breakfast. It was only what he would have called an ‘olla’ of carrots, onions, and the like; but never since the world began had these homely vegetables borne such an odor to the senses, or such a rapture to the soul!
His first thought was of Juffrouw Roskĕ. This meant life for her. Without tasting a morsel, famished though he was, he snatched up the pot, tore off his jacket, and wrapped it in it—his one chance of bearing it safely through that city of starving men to the house of Adrian. Gladly—how gladly!—would he have fed them all, but for them food was coming fast, and Roskĕ was dying for the want of it.
His task was made easier—was made possible, perhaps by the fact that all the citizens who could walk were already crowding down to the quays to welcome their deliverers, and to get the bread they would bring.
As he entered the town, the first red gleam of the rising sun showed him, beyond the fort, the ships of the Sea Beggars with sails set, all in motion. He prayed God to keep Roske— alive, and not to let his heart break with the rapture, ere the deliverers touched the land.
He had a confused recollection afterward of holding Roske— in his arms, and feeding her slowly with a tiny silver spoon, her particular favorite; of seeing the doctor, the two ladies, and the Apothecary Floriszoon, all gathered round the dish into which he had poured his treasure trove, and of sharing the meal with them. Then he remembered exhorting them all to go down to the quay and see the ships come in, and to leave him the Juffrouw to take care of. But she insisted that he should go too, and take her with him, in his arms. There, however, the confusion ceased. What followed shone clear as sunlight, and stamped itself on his soul forever.
With feeble, tottering footsteps the little party crept along; it was wonderful that the women could walk at all, but joy and hope lent strength to the weakest that day. At last the quay was reached. Already it was densely crowded, nearly every man, woman, and child in the town who was able to walk or stand being there. And what a crowd! Gaunt, emaciated forms, haggard features, eyes bloodshot with fever, or dim with mortal weakness! More than one dropped down in their very sight; fainting, dying perhaps, with deliverance come—just too late.
Presently some one opened a door, and invited the Pernets in. It was a patient of Adrian’s who lived on the quay. ‘Come to my upper chamber, ladies,’ he said. ‘You will see all, and be out of the throng.’ He led them to the place, and gave them seats at the window.
Outside, the sun was shining in all its glory, as the rude brown ships, with weather-stained sails and damaged cording, came moving up to the quay—moving quickly, yet all too slow for the waiting crowd. Long ere they reached the land, the crews flung out with lavish hand loaves of bread amongst the starving multitude. But the joy was not complete until the first ship touched the quay, and the brave old Admiral sprang on shore. The heroic Burgomaster stepped forward to bid him welcome, and when the people saw those two locked fast in each other’s arms, they knew their long agony was over, and that God had sent them deliverance. Then indeed there rose up to heaven such a cry of joy as this poor sorrow-stricken earth has seldom heard, before or since.
With a resistless impulse, which moved them as one man, the vast crowd swept on to the great church of St. Peter—near at hand—to return thanks to Almighty God.
‘Let us go too,’ said Rose to Adrian, when she understood what they were doing.
‘Art able, my beloved?’ he asked, with an anxious glance at her pale face.
‘Able for anything now,’ she answered.
So they all went, Rose leaning on her husband, Tant’ Marie following, and Dirk with Roskĕ in his arms.
Scarce could they find standing room, even in the vast spaces of that immense church. From end to end, from side to side, in every vantage coign of window, arch, and pillar, stood closely packed that strange congregation. All ranks were there, from the Admiral and the Burgomaster to the rudest Zealand fisherman or the poorest Leyden beggar—all ages, from the old man leaning on his staff, to Roskĕ in the arms of Dirk. One thought filled every soul, one passion throbbed in every heart.
A pastor entered the pulpit, and said in a loud though broken voice, ‘My brethren, let us sing to the praise and glory of God.’ He gave out the psalm, or hymn. A mighty volume of sound arose and swelled up to the high arched roof—
‘God is our strong defense and tower,
Our sword and shield is He;
He helps and saves in every hour
Of dire necessity.’
Here the voices faltered—paused. Many broke down completely, but others, with stronger cheer and courage, went on—
‘Through our own strength is nothing done,
Our foes would triumph o’er us;
There fights for us the Mighty One—’
It was no use! The last words were but a quavering murmur. Here and there an isolated voice tried again; only to be drowned in the universal passion of weeping that shook the whole assembly. The hardy Zealanders, the wild Sea Beggars—Admiral and all—wept and sobbed as unrestrainedly as the little children of Leyden, who only understood that the Lord was very good, and had given them bread to eat at last.
In those tears the city of the Two Keys paid her tribute of praise and thankfulness. And still, after more than three centuries, as the circling years bring round that day, ‘marked evermore with white,’ the 3rd day of October, the citizens of old Leyden throng their historic churches to give thanks to God for His great salvation. And in every church and in every home—
‘With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,’
of what their fathers suffered for faith and freedom, and of how the Lord God delivered them from their enemies, and ‘gave them bread enough to eat, through the Prince of Orange and the sea.’
‘O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that Thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them.’