never wavered in obedience to the King, hurled in a single day from the
height of honour and happiness to a gulf of misery, and become a den of
robbers and murderers, who know nothing of God and the King. Old men,
women, and children have been slaughtered by them without distinction,
the goods belonging partly to foreign owners have been stolen and burned,
and the magnificent Town Hall, with all its treasures of documents and
patents, has become a prey of the flames."

"Horrible! horrible!" cried Barbara, and Don John repeated her words,
and added in a hollow tone: "And this happened yesterday, on the
selfsame Sunday which saw me ride into the Netherlands! These are the
bonfires which redden the heavens on my arrival!"

"William of Orange will call them incendiary flames crying aloud for
vengeance," fell in half-stifled accents from Barbara's lips.

"And this time with some reason," replied Don John in a tone of assent,
"for the men who kindled them are mercenaries of the King, formerly our
own troops, who have been driven to desperation." Then he continued
passionately: "And Philip sends me--me, a man of the sword--to these
provinces. What is the warrior to do here? This blade is too good to
deal the death-blow to the body which is already bleeding from a thousand
wounds. If, nevertheless, I did it, I should destroy the most productive
fountain of the King's wealth. It is not a man who can fight and command
an army and a navy that is needed here, but a woman who understands how
to mediate and to heal. The King sent me to this country not to gather
fresh laurels, but to be shipwrecked, and with bleeding brow return
defeated. Oh, I see through him! But I also know--Heaven be praised!--
what I owe to myself, my father's son. If the States-General permit me
to take the troops away by sea, I will gain the woman and the crown that