There could be no lack of flames and carnage; but that was part of his trade, as shavings belong to flames, hammer-strokes to smiths.

Count Philipp had no suspicion of the assault, was not permitted to suspect anything.  He attributed Ulrich’s agitated manner to the rejection he had encountered in his father’s house, and when he took leave of him on his departure to Swabia, talked kindly with his former schoolmate and advised him to leave the Spanish flag and try once more to be reconciled to the old man.

Before the Eletto quitted the city, he gave Hans Eitelfritz, whose regiment had secretly joined the mutiny, letters of safeguard for his family and the artist, Moor.

He had not forgotten the latter, but well-founded timidity withheld him from appearing before the honored man, while cherishing the gloomy thoughts that now filled his soul.

In Aalst the mutineers received him with eager joy, harsh and repellent as he appeared, they cheerfully obeyed him; for he could hold out to them a prospect, which lured a bright smile to the bearded lips of the grimmest warrior.

If power was the word, he scarcely understood how to use it aright, for wholly absorbed in himself, he led a joyless life of dissatisfied longing and gloomy reverie.

It seemed to him as if he had lost one half of himself, and needed Ruth to become the whole man.  Hours grew to days, days to weeks, and not until Roda’s messenger appeared from the citadel in Antwerp to summon him to action, did he revive and regain his old vivacity.

CHAPTER XXX.

On the twentieth of October Mastricht fell into the Spaniards’ hands, and was cruelly pillaged.  The garrison of Antwerp rose and began to make common cause with the friends of the mutineers in the citadel.

Foreign merchants fled from the imperilled city.  Governor Champagny saw his own person and the cause of order seriously threatened by the despots in the fortress, which dominated the town.  A Netherland army, composed principally of Walloons, under the command of the incapable Marquis Havre, the reckless de Heze and other nobles appeared before the capital, to prevent the worst.

Champagny feared that the German regiments would feel insulted and scent treason, if he admitted the government troops—­but the majority of the lansquenets were already in league with the insurgents, the danger hourly increased, everywhere loyalty wavered, the citizens urgently pressed the matter, and the gates were opened to the Netherlanders.

Count Oberstein, the German commander of the lansquenets, who while intoxicated had pledged himself to make common cause with the mutineers in the citadel, remembered his duty and remained faithful to the end.  The regiment in which Hans Eitelfritz served, and the other companies of lansquenets, had succumbed to the temptation, and only waited the signal for revolt.  The inhabitants felt just like a man, who keeps powder and firebrands in the cellar, or a traveller, who recognizes robbers and murderers in his own escort.