"Now then, friends: in two hours’ time the tyrant will have twelve thousand troops massed against us. We have two thousand well-trained soldiers within our guild-houses who are idle at this moment. Here are five hundred of them--the others are close by! with their help we can crush the tyrant--fight him till we conquer, and treat him as he would have treated us. Here is your revenge for his insults! Get your brothers to forswear their allegiance and to fight by your side!" A gasp went right through the hall which now was packed closely with men--the five hundred Walloon prisoners huddled together at one end, and some four thousand men of Ghent filling every corner of the vast arcaded hall. In the very midst of them all Mark van Rycke hoisted up on the shoulders of his friends--with gleaming eyes and quivering voice--awaited their reply. The malcontents were the first to make their voices heard: "These traitors," they shouted, "the paid mercenaries of Alva! Art crazy, van Rycke?" "The Spanish woman hath cajoled thee!" some of them exclaimed with a curse. "Or offered thee a bribe from the tyrant," cried others. "We’ll hang thee along with the prisoners if thou darest to turn against us," added Peter Balde spitefully. "Hang me then, friends, an ye list," he said with a loud laugh, "but let me speak while ye get the gallows ready. Walloons," he added, turning to the prisoners who were regarding him with utter bewilderment, in which past terror still held sway, "ye are our kith and kin. Together we have groaned under the most execrable tyrant the world has even known. To-day I offer you the power to strike one blow at the tyrant--a blow from which he will never recover--a blow which will help you to win that which every Netherlander craves for: Liberty! Will ye help us to strike that blow and cover yourselves with glory?" "Aye! aye!" came from the Walloons with one stupendous cry of hope and of relief. "Will you fight with us?" "Yes!" "Die with us?" "Yes!" "For the freedom of the Netherlands?" "For Liberty!" they cried. But all the while murmurings were going on among the Flemings. Their hatred of the Walloons who had borne arms against their own native land and for its subjugation under the heel of an alien master was greater almost than their hatred against the Spaniards. "The Walloons? Horror!" they shouted, even whilst Mark was infusing some of his own ardent enthusiasm into the veins of those five hundred prisoners. "Shame on thee, van Rycke!" whilst one man who has remained nameless to history cried out loudly: "Traitor!" "Aye! traitor thou!" retorted van Rycke, "who wouldst prefer the lust of killing to that of victory!"