“And yet,” says the Italian, “the statue is the guardian of Alva’s treasure.” “How?” “Hearken. While altering and rebuilding the Citadel of Antwerp, I, as chief engineer, discovered an old vaulted way made for purposes of sally. It ran from the great Bastion of the Duke under the moat to a place of egress in the city itself, a house just beyond the Esplanade. Under secret instructions from the Captain-General, I excavated at the Citadel end of this passage in the solid rock thirty feet under ground a chamber. This chamber holds the treasures of Alva. The earth and solid masonry of the great bastion of the Duke are heaped upon it. It would take weeks of labor to dig down from the Citadel to obtain it, and explosives enough to blow up the bastion. Therefore it cannot be reached from the Citadel. But from the town it is accessible, though impossible to one not knowing its secret, for it has been guarded by every art the mechanism of Giovanni Alfriedo, an ingenious Italian imported from Venice, could give to its defense. Yet it is easy and quick of access to those who have the secret, and I am the only man save Alva that knows it now—Giovanni himself being slain by pirates on his return voyage to Venice, perchance by order and design.” “Thy time is up!” shouts Van Tresslong, thundering on the door. “Ten minutes more for the soul of a dying man,” murmurs Paciotto. “Yes, time that he may die in his church,” cries Guy, desperate now for Alva’s secret. So a few minutes more are given to them, not for mercy, but to find a hangman. For the town executioner is absent at Middelburg and word of this being now brought to Van Tresslong he raises his voice in the crowd in front of the town hall, proclaiming largess for a hangman. But none wish to undertake this degrading office—save one man, who being told Paciotto is a Spaniard, cries: “I’ll do the job, I’ll hang the Spanish forever! Only I must have liberty to attack and kill anyone who scorns me for having been a Spaniard’s hangman,” and makes his preparations with noose and ladder.