deliverance so far as it has been effected. But if the consequences are
to be as you fear, I am ready at once to get into the chest again and be
carried back to prison."

But she answered, "No; whatever comes of it, we have you here and will do
all that we can to help you on."

Grotius being faint from his sufferings, the lady brought him a glass of
Spanish wine, but was too much flustered to find even a cloak or shawl to
throw over him. Leaving him sitting there in his very thin attire, just
as he had got out of the chest, she went to the front warehouse to call
her husband. But he prudently declined to go to his unexpected guest.
It would be better in the examination sure to follow, he said, for him to
say with truth that he had not seen him and knew nothing of the escape,
from first to last.

Grotius entirely approved of the answer when told to him. Meantime
Madame Daatselaer had gone to her brother-in-law van der Veen, a clothier
by trade, whom she found in his shop talking with an officer of the
Loevestein garrison. She whispered in the clothier's ear, and he, making
an excuse to the officer, followed her home at once. They found Grotius
sitting where he had been left. Van der Veen gave him his hand, saying:

"Sir, you are the man of whom the whole country is talking?"

"Yes, here I am," was the reply, "and I put myself in your hands--"

"There isn't a moment to lose," replied the clothier. "We must help you
away at once."