Nearly all that night they pass up the river, and by daybreak are happy to find themselves, having made their way there by a small connecting stream, in the Leg Meer, a long, narrow patch of water that nearly reaches the Haarlem Lake. Passing along this in the early morning they are pursued and overtaken, and that would probably be the end of them, were it not friends instead of enemies who come upon them. It is a small bateau patrolling this debatable water in behalf of the Prince of Orange. From its captain they get the information that De Bossu has just put more galleys on the Haarlem Lake, and that they will have a hard time to get through the Spanish, as the Dutch fleet is refitting at the Kaag at the south end of the lake. “You had better not go,” suggests the Holland commander. But Guy, confident that every day will bring more vessels of Alva’s upon the Haarlem Meer, making his course more difficult, insists upon going, and Haring is not the man to stay behind. “Well, if you’ve made up your mind to it,” replies the Dutch captain, “We’ll help you on your way.” His sailors assist Guy and Haring in getting their boat from Leg Meer across the polders by a water ditch that runs beside a dyke and launch it upon the Haarlem Lake. “Now,” says Chester, “what provisions can you spare. It were an outrage against humanity if we went into that starving town and took not one sack of meal to their hungry mouths.” “You’re right,” answers the bateau commander. “We’ll give you three hundred pounds of flour, which is all your boat can safely carry.” “Now you take your lives in your hands,” continues the captain. “You’d better go in at night. You’re safer at the south end. But as you get near Haarlem, look out! The Spaniards have two or three galleys always off the Fuik.” Taking the advice of their friends, and getting from them a bottle of spirits that cheers the two greatly, Haring and Guy set sail and speed across the Haarlem Lake to two small islands on the western side some four miles south of Haarlem. There they lie until the night sets in once more, and then in the darkness, though they have a narrow squeak of it from a patrol galley, get in to the Fuik and land at one of the small forts built there to keep open communication between the lake and the leaguered city. Here they are welcomed by a crowd of gaunt, hungry but determined-eyed citizens, who, under the stress of siege, have become more enduring than veterans. For all history shows that when the citizen rises to defend home and wives and children, no soldier is so enduring of hunger, of thirst, of wounds, of torture, as he who battles within sight of his roof-tree and returns each night from the horrors of war to caress his wife and little ones, the sight of whom makes him go forth again more desperate, more enduring, and more heroic for their kisses and their tears. CHAPTER XVII. ADVANCED WOMANHOOD IN 1573.