"The immortal souls which your obstinacy would send to hell," said the Duke of Alva, "will return and haunt you till they drag you back with them." "Can you not pray in your Kasteel?" retorted Mark. "We have no priest to say Mass for us." "We will send you one." "We have no consecrated chapel." "The priest will say Mass in your castle-yard, beneath the consecrated dome of heaven. The Walloon prisoners whom we have taken are receiving the ministry of our priests in the guild-houses where they are held." "Nay! but such makeshift would not satisfy the children of Spain who are also the chosen children of the Church. But," continued Alva with a sudden assumption of indifference, "I have made my proposal. Take it or not as ye list. But remember this: the dead who lie unburied in your streets will have their revenge. Pestilence and disease will sweep your city of your children, as soon as we have vanquished your men." "Treachery!" cried some of the Orangists, "do not heed him, van Rycke." But of a truth the cry was not repeated quite so insistently this time. Alva’s last argument was an unanswerable one. Pestilence these days was a more formidable foe than the finest artillery wielded by a powerful enemy: there were over two thousand dead lying unburied in the city at this hour: as the tyrant said very truly, these would take a terrible revenge. And there was something too in the sanctity of the Lord’s Day which touched the hearts of these men who were deeply religious and devout and had a profound respect for the dictates of the Church. Most of them were Catholics--the importance of attending Mass on the Lord’s Day on pain of committing a deadly sin weighed hard upon their conscience. Alva was quick to note the advantage which he had already gained, and when the first dissentient voice among the Orangists was heard to say: "A truce can do no harm and ’twere sacrilege to fight on the Lord’s Day," he broke in quickly: