"Seigniors," he began, "I am your servant and will do as you wish. I have told you that I am no leader and am not fit to command ... yet you choose to honour me, and this is no time for false humility and the diffidence which is the attribute of cowards. But--despite your gracious choice of me as your leader in this terrible emergency--will you ere you finally decide to follow me hear from me what plan I should pursue, and to what heights of self-sacrifice I would ask you to rise in the face of the awful calamity which threatens our city. Seigniors," he continued, and indeed now save for the ring of that deep-toned voice, so great was the silence in the vast refectory that every heart-beat might have been heard, "you have heard the decree of our tyrant. Unless we deliver to him the precious person of our noble Prince, the whole city will be delivered over to the brutal soldiery, who will pillage our houses, desecrate our churches, murder and outrage our wives, our mothers and our children--just as they did in Mons, in Valenciennes and in Mechlin. Seigniors, we are men--all of us here--and at thought of what awaits us and our fellow-citizens our very heart blood seems to freeze with horror. It is of our women that we must think and of our children! Thank God that the Prince knows nothing of this decree--which hath been framed by the most inhuman monster the world hath ever known--or of a certainty he would have gone straight to the Kasteel and given up his precious life to save our fellow-citizens. Seigniors, what the Prince would have done, we know; and as he would have acted, so must we be prepared to act. But before I parted from him, I had his advice on the plan which I now beg leave to place before you. On my word of honour, seigniors, he approved of it in its entirety, and much that I will submit to you anon hath been framed under his guidance." He paused awhile and through the holes in the mask his glowing eyes searched the faces of his listeners with a masterful glance that was both challenging and appealing. "Every one of us here," he said abruptly, "is, I know, ready to sacrifice his life for faith, for freedom and country, and ere we give in to the monstrous tyranny which hath planned the destruction of our city we must fight, seigniors, fight to the death, fight for every inch of our ground, fight for every homestead which we would save from outrage. Death awaits us all anyhow, then at any rate with God’s help let us die fighting to the end."