know they will help us."

"When it is too late. One thing follows another, misfortune is heaped on
misfortune, and on whom do the curses of the starving people fall? On me,
me, me alone."

"You are acting with the Prince's commissioner."

Peter smiled bitterly, saying: "He took to his bed yesterday. Bontius
says it is the plague. I, I alone bear everything."

"We bear it with you," cried Maria. "First poverty, then hunger, as we
promised."

"Better than that. The last grain was baked today. The bread is
exhausted."

"We still have oxen and horses."

"We shall come to them day after to-morrow. It was determined: Two pounds
with the bones to every four persons. Bread gone, cows gone, milk gone.
And what will happen then? Mothers, infants, sick people! And our
Bessie!"

The burgomaster pressed his hands on his temples and groaned aloud. But
Maria said: "Courage, Peter, courage. Hold fast to one thing, don't let
one thing go--hope."

"Hope, hope," he answered scornfully.

"To hope no longer," cried Maria, "means to despair. To despair means in
our case to open the gates, to open the gates means--"

"Who is thinking of opening the gates? Who talks of surrender?" he
vehemently interrupted. "We will still hold firm, still, still----There
is the portfolio, take it to the messenger."

CHAPTER XXIX.

Bessie had eaten a piece of roast pigeon, the first morsel for several
days, and there was as much rejoicing over it in the Van der Werff
household, as if some great piece of good fortune had befallen the
family. Adrian ran to the workshops and told the men, Peter went to the
town-hall with a more upright bearing, and Maria, who was obliged to go
out, undertook to tell Wilhelm's mother of the good results produced by
her son's gift.

Tears ran down the old lady's flabby cheeks at the story and, kissing the
burgomaster's wife, she exclaimed:

"Yes, Wilhelm, Wilhelm! If he were only at home now. But I'll call his
father. Dear me, he is probably at the town-hall too. Hark, Frau Maria,
hark--what's that?"

The ringing of bells and firing of cannon had interrupted her words; she
hastily threw open the window, crying:

"From the Tower of Pancratius! No alarm-bell, firing and merry-ringing.
Some joyful tidings have come. We need them! Ulrich, Ulrich! Come back at
once and bring us the news. Dear Father in Heaven!

"Merciful God! Send the relief. If it were only that!"

The two women waited in great suspense.