sh!" whispered one of his friends, "Hush! for God's sake!"

"Bah! the church is empty," retorted Stoutenburg, "and the verger too
far away to hear. I'll say it again, and proclaim it loudly now in this
very church before the altar of God: I will kill the Stadtholder with
mine own hand!"

"Silence in the name of God!"

More than one muffled voice had uttered the warning and Beresteyn's hand
fell heavily on Stoutenburg's arm.

"Hush, I say!" he whispered hoarsely, "there's something moving there in
the darkness."

"A rat mayhap!" quoth Stoutenburg lightly.

"No, no ... listen!... some one moves ... some one has been
there ... all along...."

"A spy!" murmured the others under their breath.

In a moment every man there had his hand on his sword: Stoutenburg and
Beresteyn actually drew theirs. They did not speak to one another for
they had caught one another's swift glance, and the glance had in it the
forecast of a grim resolve.

Whoever it was who thus moved silently out of the shadows--spy or merely
indiscreet listener--would pay with his life for the knowledge which he
had obtained. These men here could no longer afford to take any risks.
The words spoken by Stoutenburg and registered by them all could be made
the stepping stones to the scaffold if strange ears had caught their
purport.

They meant death to someone, either to the speakers or to the
eavesdropper; and six men were determined that it should be the
eavesdropper who must pay for his presence here.

They forced their eyes to penetrate the dense gloom which surrounded
them, and one and all held their breath, like furtive animals that
await their prey. They stood there silent and rigid, a tense look on
every face; the one light fixed in the pillar above them played weirdly
on their starched ruffs scarce whiter than the pallid hue of their
cheeks.

Then suddenly a sound caught their ears, which caused each man to start
and to look at his nearest companion with set inquiring eyes; it was the
sound of a woman's skirt swishing against the stone-work of the floor.
The seconds went by leaden-footed and full of portentous meaning. Each
heart-beat beneath the vaulted roof of the cathedral to-night seemed
like a knell from eternity.

How slow the darkness was in yielding up its secret!

At last as the conspirators gazed, they saw the form of a woman emerging
out of the shadows. At first they could only see her starched kerchief
and a glimmer of jewe