horror the news had inspired: "Antwerp attacked by his Majesty's
rebellious troops, those in Alst, headed by their Eletto--burned to
ashes, plundered, destroyed!"

With a hasty snatch Don John seized the parchment announcing the
misfortune, and read it, panting for breath.

The Council of Antwerp had addressed it to King Philip, and sent a copy
to him, the newly appointed governor.

When he let the hand which held the paper fall, he was deadly pale, and
gazed around him as though seeking assistance.

Then his eyes met those of his mother who, seized with anxious fears,
was watching his every movement, and he handed her the fatal sheet, with
the half-sorrowful, half-disdainful exclamation:

"And I am to lead this abused people back to love the man who sent them
the Duke of Alba, that he might heal their wounds with his pitiless iron
hand, and who let the poor, brave fellows in his service starve and go
in rags until, in fierce despair, they seized for themselves what their
employer denied."

The sheet Barbara's son had handed to her trembled in her hand as she
read half aloud: "It is the greatest commercial city in Europe, the
fosterer of art, knowledge, manufactures, and the Catholic faith, which
never wavered in obedience to the King, hurled in a single day from the
height of honour and happiness to a gulf of misery, and become a den of
robbers and murderers, who know nothing of God and the King. Old men,
women, and children have been slaughtered by them without distinction,
the goods belonging partly to foreign owners have been stolen and
burned, and the magnificent Town Hall, with all its treasures of
documents and patents, has become a prey of the flames."

"Horrible! horrible!" cried Barbara, and Don John repeated her words,
and added in a hollow tone: "And this happened yesterday, on the
selfsame Sunday which saw me ride into the Netherlands! These are the
bonfires which redden the heavens on my arrival!"

"William of Orange will call them incendiary flames crying aloud for
vengeance," fell in half-stifled accents from Barbara's lips.

"And this time with some reason," replied Don John in a tone of assent,
"for the men who kindled them are mercenaries of the King, formerly
our own troops, who have been driven to desperation." Then he continued
passionately: "And Philip sends me--me, a man of the sword--to these
provinces. What is the warrior to do here? This blade is too good
to deal the death-blow to th