“Well, you will observe when you come to know more of our politics that that is unlike Fletcher too. He is a savage cur. I do not trust either of them. I should be more at my ease to have the men of the Red Band baying at my window like hounds than to have them feed me with words of honey. Keep your own counsel, my friend. Stay out of the narrow streets after nightfall. I should advise you to take lodgings at the Ferry-House. It is a quiet place of entertainment, modest, and remote from the turmoil of the lower town. It may be that I shall desire to communicate with you. If I do, I shall send there to find you. Say as little of your name as suits your convenience till this mystery unravels itself somewhat. Farewell; I may send for you before the day is over.” CHAPTER VII PIERRE’S SECRET Good humored little Pierre was ducked for his offense in the coffee-house. He was taken before the magistrates who sat in the great room in the Stadt Huys, and they tried him legally for unbecoming conduct towards a member of the upper class. Against this charge there was very little Pierre could offer in defense. In vain he pleaded that he had seen indirectly and meant to empty the rum upon Kirstoffel. The charge was immediately changed by the grave Dutch magistrates to drunkenness in order that there should be no mistake. Pierre perforce gave way to the inevitable. Through the influence of Van Volkenberg who had not yet recovered from his anger, Pierre was sentenced to the ducking stool. The indignity of this punishment was particularly galling to Pierre because it was commonly reserved for scolding wives and spinster crones whose tongues were too long for their mouths. “I’ll go to the pillory, your honor,” he said piteously, “or ride the pinch-back horse a week of market days; but to be ducked like a woman! And they say there are great fish in the bay who will nibble my toes. Your honor, I was only a little drunk.” But the magistrates’ hearts could not be softened away from duty. They were bringing the culprit out of the Stadt Huys at the very moment that the dominie and I were returning from our visit to the fort. We met them with half the town flocking at their heels and clamoring for the sport to come. Pierre, slightly sobered by his experience at the court-room, had plucked up a small amount of dignity. He walked erect as if he had made up his mind to take his punishment like a man. I looked at him closely and believed that there was more stuff to the fellow than at first appeared. His face wore a look of dogged resentment; such a look as I should not care to see in the face of an enemy.