Mynheer Volmar had spoken of our enterprise as a hair-brained adventure, the device of a very madman, and a mere courting of disaster. A prophet, whether of good or ill, likes not that his predictions should belie and mock him; and Volmar, when his prophecies fell out so wide of the mark, looked upon me, the begetter of the design, ever more sourly than he was wont. And when the Burgomaster at our next council leant rather upon my opinion than upon the opinion of his familiar, I perceived by some sixth sense, as it were, that Volmar entertained a violent ill-will against me, albeit he was at great pains to cloak his hatred under a guise of careless indifferency. For this reason I deemed it fitting to improve my knowledge of that councillor. I learnt from my friend, the Captain of the Guard, that Volmar was well-reputed in the city, having much goods laid up, and yet being open-handed. He was charged with keeping the stores of munition and with the defence of a certain portion of the walls, and was very diligent in these offices. It was his custom, every Sunday forenoon about nine of the clock, that day and hour having been commended to him by one well skilled in astrology, to fire off a culverin upon the Spaniards from the parapet of his own ward. The Captain of the Guard, upon my asking what purpose might be served by this quaint device, assured me with great gravity that, a shot being fired at a moment shown as propitious by the conjunction of the planets, the Spaniards would never stir that day, and the burghers might pay their devotions in church without fear of disturbance. I marvelled at so strange a mingling of heathenish superstition with Christian piety, but I forbore to speak my mind upon it, deeming every man entitled to believe as he listeth. On the night but one following our sally I was returning at a late hour, and alone, from making a round of the defences. When I came near the house of Mistress Verhoeff, where I still made my lodging, I heard the scuffling of a hurried footstep, and espied, though dimly, a man slinking into a narrow alley upon the further side of the street. I saw this, without considering it; and I might have thought of it no more but that I heard my hostess’ son stealthily quit the house maybe an hour after. Then putting the one thing with the other, I began to wonder, and cogitate, and question whether there were not something in the wind. It came into my mind that the man I had seen afore had been disturbed at my coming, and slunk away to escape me; and I began to suspect that Jan Verhoeff and he were partners in some secret night work, I knew not what.