rather, he bitterly exclaimed, endure a siege in any fortress by the
Turks, than be placed in such a position. He was doing all that he was
capable of doing, yet whatever he did was wrong. There was a great
difference, he said, between being in a place and talking about it at a
distance.

In the middle of October he was recalled by the Duchess, whose letters
had been uniformly so ambiguous that he confessed he was quite unable to
divine their meaning. Before he left the city, he committed his most
unpardonable crime. Urged by the leaders of the reformed congregations
to permit their exercises in the Clothiers' Hall until their temples
should be finished, the Count accorded his consent provisionally, and
subject to revocation by the Regent, to whom the arrangement was
immediately to be communicated.

Horn departed, and the Reformers took instant possession of the hall.
It was found in a very dirty and disorderly condition, encumbered with
benches, scaffoldings, stakes, gibbets, and all the machinery used for
public executions upon the market-place. A vast body of men went to work
with a will; scrubbing, cleaning, whitewashing, and removing all the foul
lumber of the hall; singing in chorus, as they did so, the hymns of
Clement Marot. By dinner-time the place was ready. The pulpit and
benches for the congregation had taken the place of the gibbet timber.
It is difficult to comprehend that such work as this was a deadly crime.
Nevertheless, Horn, who was himself a sincere Catholic, had committed the
most mortal of all his offences against Philip and against God, by having
countenanced so flagitious a transaction.

The Admiral went to Brussels. Secretary de la Torre, a very second-rate
personage, was despatched to Tournay to convey the orders of the Regent.