ht she hated; and when the third verse began with the
words,

"So goodly is the life he leads
Within this earthly vale,"

oh, how gladly she would have joined in!

That could not be, but she sang with them in her heart, for she had long
since caught the tune, and how intently the soldiers would have listened
if it had been possible for her to raise her voice as usual! Amid the
singing of all these men her clear, bell-like tones would have risen
like the lark soaring from the grain field, and what a storm of applause
would have greeted her from these rough throats!

Grief for the lost happiness of pouring forth her feelings in melody
seized upon her more deeply than for a long time. She would fain have
glided quietly away to escape the cause of this fresh sorrow. But
Gombert was listening to the young soldier's song with interest, so
Barbara continued to hear the young warrior as, with evident enthusiasm,
he sang the verse:

"Patient and tolerant is he,
Nor vengeance seeks, nor blood;
E'en though he errs, as well may be,
His heart is ever good."

She, too, had deemed this heart so, but now she knew better. Yet it
pleased her that the fair-haired soldier so readily believed the poet
and, obeying a hasty impulse, she put her hand into the pouch at her
belt to give him a gold piece; but Gombert nudged her, and in his broken
Netherland German repeated the verse which he had just heard:

"'Tis stern necessity that forced
The sword into his hand;
'Tis not for questions of the faith
That he doth make his stand."

So the soldiers believed that their commander had only grasped the sword
when compelled to do so, and that religion had nothing to do with the
war, but the leader of the orchestra knew better. The conversations
of the Spaniards at the court, and the words which De Soto had uttered
lauding the Emperor, "Since God placed my foes in my hands, I must wage
war upon his enemies," were plain enough.

Gombert repeated this remark in a low tone but, ere Barbara could answer
him, the carriage, with its fresh relay of horses, stopped in the road.

It was time to get in again, but Barbara dreaded the ride over the
rough, crowded highway, and begged her companion to pursue their journey
a little farther on foot. He consented and, as the girl now flung a
gold gulden to the blond leader of the voices, cheers from the soldiers
fol