As I was considering this, suspecting that those letters had been inscribed upon the paper since it was wrested from Verhoeff, Mynheer Volmar spoke. He said that, clear though the testimony seemed to be, he would plead for mercy for the young man. His fortune being so much diminished from that whereto he had been born, he had without doubt been put to a fierce temptation. "And since," he proceeded, "I myself suffer at his hands, inasmuch as he sought to cast suspicion on me, whose whole concern is the welfare of the city, I may most fitly raise my voice in beseeching my brethren to remember the services rendered in time past by the young man’s father, and, mindful of them, to deal mercifully with the son; not to bring him to trial and put him to open shame, but to hold him safe in ward while the city is still compassed about, and then to banish him without scandal to the common weal." Perceiving the drift of this, and divining that Volmar had his own good reasons for cloaking the matter, I said with some bluntness that ’twas time to show mercy when guilt was proved. Volmar took me up insolently, declaring that I had no right nor title to speak on such a matter, and that being a stranger, come among them uncommended, and a house-mate with this abandoned traitor, I had best walk warily and manage my tongue, lest I found my own neck in jeopardy. At this discourse, and the murmurs of approval that broke from certain of the councillors, I was pricked to indignation, and might have said more than wisdom warranted had not the Burgomaster, plainly ill at ease, interposed himself as peace-maker. I had reason to bless his intervention, because I was thereby hindered from saying in my haste that which I should assuredly have repented at my leisure. For it happened that the Burgomaster calling for the next business, Volmar brought forth the list of stores that it was in his duty to lay before the council every week. This he read out, the councillors harkening with gloomy countenances to the tale of diminished victuals and munitions of war. When he had made an end, the document strayed about the table, and presently came to the hand of the burgher next me, who held it in such manner that I was able to see it clearly. And then within my soul I cried blessings on the Burgomaster, in that he had checked my tongue, for so soon as my eyes fell upon this paper, I knew in a moment that the handwriting was the same as that upon the paper which John Temple had taken from the Spaniard, and which I had, even now, folded in my pocket.