E'en though he errs, as well may be,
His heart is ever good."

She, too, had deemed this heart so, but now she knew better. Yet it
pleased her that the fair-haired soldier so readily believed the poet
and, obeying a hasty impulse, she put her hand into the pouch at her belt
to give him a gold piece; but Gombert nudged her, and in his broken
Netherland German repeated the verse which he had just heard:

"'Tis stern necessity that forced
The sword into his hand;
'Tis not for questions of the faith
That he doth make his stand."

So the soldiers believed that their commander had only grasped the sword
when compelled to do so, and that religion had nothing to do with the
war, but the leader of the orchestra knew better. The conversations of
the Spaniards at the court, and the words which De Soto had uttered
lauding the Emperor, "Since God placed my foes in my hands, I must wage
war upon his enemies," were plain enough.

Gombert repeated this remark in a low tone but, ere Barbara could answer
him, the carriage, with its fresh relay of horses, stopped in the road.

It was time to get in again, but Barbara dreaded the ride over the rough,
crowded highway, and begged her companion to pursue their journey a
little farther on foot. He consented and, as the girl now flung a gold
gulden to the blond leader of the voices, cheers from the soldiers
followed them.