them—­oh, gentlemen!  I shall never forget it, a bullet struck him down at my side.  It probably pierced his heart, for he said:  nothing but:  ’Remember the boy!’ stretched out his powerful frame and died.  We wanted to bear his body away with us, but were pressed by superior numbers, and it was hard enough to come within range of Junker von Warmond’s volunteers.  The Spaniards did not venture so far.  Here we are.  The Castilian’s body is lying in the tower at the Hohenort Gate.  These are the papers we found in the dead man’s doublet, and this is his ring; he has a proud escutcheon.”

Peter Van der Werff took the dead man’s letter-case in his hand, looked through it and said:  “His name was Don Luis d Avila.”

He said no more, for his wife had seen Henrica’s head stretched far out of the window, and cried loudly in terror:  “Fraulein, for Heaven’s sake, Fraulein—­what are you doing?”

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THE BURGOMASTER’S WIFE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 4.

CHAPTER XX.

The burgomaster’s wife had been anxious about Henrica, but the latter greeted her with special cheerfulness and met her gentle reproaches with the assurance that this morning had done her good.  Fate, she said, was just, and if it were true that confidence of recovery helped the physician, Doctor Bontius would have an easy task with her.  The dead Castilian must be the wretch, who had plunged her sister Anna into misery.  Maria, surprised, but entirely relieved, left her and sought her husband to tell him how she had found the invalid, and in what relation the Spanish officer, slain by Allertssohn, seemed to have stood to Henrica and her sister.  Peter only half listened to her, and when Barbara brought him a freshly-ironed ruff, interrupted his wife in the middle of her story, gave her the dead man’s letter-case, and said: 

“There, let her satisfy herself, and bring it to me again in the evening, I shall hardly be able to come to dinner; I suppose you’ll see poor Allertssohn’s widow in the course of the day.”

“Certainly,” she answered eagerly.  “Whom will you appoint in his place?”

“That is for the Prince to decide.”

“Have you thought of any means of keeping the communication with Delft free from the enemy?”

“On your mother’s account?”

“Not solely.  Rotterdam also lies to the south.  We can expect nothing from Haarlem and Amsterdam, that is, from the north, for everything there is in the hands of the Spaniards.”

“I’ll get you a place in the council of war.  Where do you learn your wisdom?”

“We have our thoughts, and isn’t it natural that I should rather follow you into the future with my eyes open, than blindly?  Has the English troop been used to secure the fortifications on the old canal?  Kaak too is an important point.”