Adrian fell upon the ground; he grovelled before his mother trying to kiss the hem of her dress, while Elsa sobbed aloud hysterically. But Lysbeth spurned him in the face with her foot, saying, “Get you gone before I call up such servants as are left to me to thrust you to the street.” Then Adrian rose and with great gasps of agony, like some sore-wounded thing, crept from that awful and majestic presence of outraged motherhood, crept down the stairs and away into the city. When he had gone Lysbeth took pen and paper and wrote in large letters these words:— “Notice to all the good citizens of Leyden. Adrian, called van Goorl, upon whose written evidence his stepfather, Dirk van Goorl, his half-brother, Foy van Goorl, and the serving-man, Martin Roos, have been condemned to death in the Gevangenhuis by torment, starvation, water, fire, and sword, is known here no longer. Lysbeth van Goorl.” Then she called a servant and gave orders that this paper should be nailed upon the front door of the house where every passer-by might read it. “It is done,” she said. “Cease weeping, Elsa, and lead me to my bed, whence I pray God that I may never rise again.” Two days went by, and a fugitive rode into the city, a worn and wounded man of Leyden, with horror stamped upon his face. “What news?” cried the people in the market-place, recognising him. “Mechlin! Mechlin!” he gasped. “I come from Mechlin.” “What of Mechlin and its citizens?” asked Pieter van de Werff, stepping forward. “Don Frederic has taken it; the Spaniards have butchered them; everyone, old and young, men, women, and children, they are all butchered. I escaped, but for two leagues and more I heard the sound of the death-wail of Mechlin. Give me wine.” They gave him wine, and by slow degrees, in broken sentences, he told the tale of one of the most awful crimes ever committed in the name of Christ by cruel man against God and his own fellows. It was written large in history: we need not repeat it here. Then, when they knew the truth, up from that multitude of the men of Leyden went a roar of wrath, and a cry to vengeance for their slaughtered kin. They took arms, each what he had, the burgher his sword, the fisherman his fish-spear, the boor his ox-goad or his pick; leaders sprang up to command them, and there arose a shout of “To the gates! To the Gevangenhuis! Free the prisoners!” They surged round the hateful place, thousands of them. The drawbridge was up, but they bridged the moat. Some shots were fired at them, then the defence ceased. They battered in the massive doors, and, when these fell, rushed to the dens and loosed those who remained alive within them. But they found no Spaniards, for by now Ramiro and his garrison had vanished away, whither they knew not. A voice cried, “Dirk van Goorl, seek for Dirk van Goorl,” and they came to the chamber overlooking the courtyard, shouting, “Van Goorl, we are here!”