"Captain Serbelloni bade me tell your Highness that he hath sent to Dendermonde for immediate reinforcements. He hoped your Highness would forgive him if he hath done wrong." Alva’s eyes flash a look of satisfaction, but he makes no immediate comment. Not even his colleagues--not even de Vargas his intimate--should see how immense is his relief. "Did he send a mounted man," he asks after a while, "or two? Two would be better in case a man gets hurt on the way." "The Captain sent three men, Magnificence. But they had to go on foot. We have no horses at the gates. The insurgents rounded them all in long before nightfall. But the men hope to pick up one or more on their way." Alva, as is his wont, smothers a savage curse. The small body of Spanish cavalry which he had with him in the town had been the first to run helter-skelter over the Ketel Brüghe into the Kasteel, whilst a whole squadron perished in the Schelde. One of those horses down there in the yard would mean reinforcements within a few hours. "When did the messenger start for Dendermonde?" he asks again. "When the Angelus began to ring at noon, Magnificence." "Why not before?" "The captain was undecided. He thought that every moment would bring help or orders from your Highness. He also tried to send messengers to Captain Lodrono at the Waalpoort, but the messengers must all have been intercepted and killed, for no help came from anywhere." "Dost know if the message which thy captain sent to Dendermonde was couched in urgent terms?" "I believe so, Magnificence. The señor captain was growing very anxious." Once more the Duke is silent; his brows contract in an anxious frown. His active brain is busy in making a mental calculation as to how soon those reinforcements can arrive. "The men will have to walk to Dendermonde," he muses, "and cannot get there before nightfall.... the commandant may start at night ... but he may tarry till the morrow.... It will be the end of the day before he and his men are here ... and in the meanwhile..." "At the Braepoort?" he queries curtly, "how many of the guard have been killed?" "We had a hundred and twenty killed when I left, Magnificence, and over three hundred lay wounded on the bridge. We have suffered heavily," adds the man after a slight moment of hesitation--the hesitation of the bearer of evil tidings who dreads his listener’s wrath. Alva remains silent for a moment or two, then he says abruptly: "Dost know that I have half a mind to kill thee, for all the evil news which thou hast brought?" Then he laughs loudly and long because the man, with a quick cry of terror has made a sudden dash for the open window, and is brought back by the lance of the provost on guard upon the balcony. The pleasure of striking terror into the hearts of people has not yet palled upon his Magnificence.