Not one of all the messengers, who had been sent out, returned; there was nothing certain, save the cruelly increasing unendurable suffering.  Even Barbara had succumbed, and complained of weakness and loathing of the ordinary food.

Maria thought of the roast-pigeon, which had agreed with Bessie so well, and went to the musician, to ask if he could sacrifice another of his pets for her sister-in-law.

Wilhelm’s mother received the burgomaster’s wife.  The old lady was sitting wearily in an arm-chair; she could still walk, but amid her anxiety and distress a strange twitching had affected her hands.  When Maria made her request, she shook her head, saying:  “Ask him yourself.  He’s obliged to keep the little creatures shut up, for whenever they appear, the poor starving people shoot at them.  There are only three left.  The messengers took the others, and they haven’t returned.

“Thank God for it; the little food he still has, will do more good in dishes, than in their crops.  Would you believe it?  A fortnight ago he paid fifty florins out of his savings for half a sack of peas, and Heaven knows where he found them.  Ulrich, Ulrich!  Take Frau Van der Werff up to Wilhelm.  I’d willingly spare you the climb, but he’s watching for the carrier-pigeons that have been sent out, and won’t even come down to his meals.  To be sure, they would hardly be worth the trouble!”

It was a clear, sunny day.  Wilhelm was standing in his look-out, gazing over the green, watery plain, that lay out-spread below him, towards the south.  Behind him sat Andreas, the fencing-master’s fatherless boy; writing notes, but his attention was not fixed on his work; for as soon as he had finished a line he too gazed towards the horizon, watching for the pigeon his teacher expected.  He did not look particularly emaciated, for many a grain of the doves’ food had been secretly added to his scanty ration of meat.

Wilhelm showed that he felt both surprised and honored by Frau Van der Werff’s visit, and even promised to grant her request, though it was evident that the “saying yes” was by no means easy for him.

The young wife went out on the balcony with him, and he showed her in the south, where usually nothing but a green plain met the eye, a wide expanse over which a light mist was hovering.  The noon sun seemed to steep the white vapor with light, and lure it upward by its ardent rays.  This was the water streaming through the broken dyke, and the black oblong specks moving along its edges were the Spanish troops and herds of cattle, that had retreated before the advancing flood from the outer fortifications, villages and hamlets.  The Land-scheiding itself was not visible, but the Beggars had already passed it.  If the fleet succeeded in reaching the Zoetermere Lake and from thence.

Wilhelm suddenly interrupted his explanation, for Andreas had suddenly started up, upsetting his stool, and exclaimed: