“Be careful, Kilian. These are grave times and we must be on our guard. You know your failing. What if you should make some——” He spoke the rest so low that I could not hear it. It had the effect, however, of calming the patroon. “Hear the man,” continued his friend. “Hear what he has to say.” “Mynher Van Volkenberg,” I explained, “if the men I fought with on the Slip this morning were your men, I can only say that we gave and took fair blows. Half a score of men fighting two or three or four is what no man of honor will stand by and see unstirred. I fought fair and I confess no crime. I should do the same against the very troops of the Earl.” “Damn the Earl!” burst out the patroon. He shook and trembled with rage. This time there was no holding him back. He stormed up and down the room, cursing me, and the Earl, and even his companion, for trying to quiet him. What had been the outcome of our altercation but for an accident I do not know. Just at that moment Pierre, who had been sleeping quietly on my rum all this while, roused himself and stumbled to his feet. When I had first spoken to him a short time before, he was merrily drunk; by now he had swallowed himself into a royal state for quarreling. “Hi, my duck!” he hiccoughed, as he lurched across the room. “At it again, eh?” The room was dumb at this sudden outbreak from an unexpected quarter. Pierre drew upon him the attention of us all except the man who had entered with the patroon. His eyes were fixed upon Van Volkenberg, his hand was laid upon the patroon’s arm. “Come with me, Kilian,” he said in a voice so low that few heard it. “You are wrought up to-day. You cannot trust yourself. Come home with me. Remember how much depends upon your coolness.” “Old man,” Pierre cried as he tottered indirectly out of the corner where he had been asleep. “You will set your dogs on me, will you?” There was almost no sound from anyone. Only the slow tick of the clock and the sand crunching beneath Pierre’s feet. Van Volkenberg trembled with fury, but was unable to speak. His companion tried in vain to drag him from the room. Pierre stopped two steps in front of them. “Take that,” he cried savagely, emptying a glass of rum on the patroon’s waistcoat. Then, waving his arms drunkenly, he began to sing: “Klink the can, Let every man— Down with Van Volkenberg.” In the uproar that followed I was aware of but two facts. The patroon was dragged off by his companion through one door, and Pierre by the crowd through another. In the midst of the pushing and shoving about the street door someone plucked my elbow. It was Kirstoffel, the host, with his finger to his lips.