the Laughing Cavalier who sat to Frans Hals for his portrait in 1624 was
the direct ancestor of Sir Percy Blakeney, known to history as the
Scarlet Pimpernel.

EMMUSKA ORCZY.

HAARLEM, 1913.

THE PROLOGUE

HAARLEM--MARCH 29TH, 1623

The day had been spring-like--even hot; a very unusual occurrence in
Holland at this time of year.

Gilda Beresteyn had retired early to her room. She had dismissed Maria,
whose chatterings grated upon her nerves, with the promise that she
would call her later. Maria had arranged a tray of dainties on the
table, a jug of milk, some fresh white bread and a little roast meat on
a plate, for Gilda had eaten very little supper and it might happen that
she would feel hungry later on.

It would have been useless to argue with the old woman about this
matter. She considered Gilda's health to be under her own special
charge, ever since good Mevrouw Beresteyn had placed her baby girl in
Maria's strong, devoted arms ere she closed her eyes in the last long
sleep.

Gilda Beresteyn, glad to be alone, threw open the casement of the window
and peered out into the night.

The shadow of the terrible tragedy--the concluding acts of which were
being enacted day by day in the Gevangen Poort of 'S Graven Hage--had
even touched the distant city of Haarlem with its gloom. The eldest son
of John of Barneveld was awaiting final trial and inevitable
condemnation, his brother Stoutenburg was a fugitive, and their
accomplices Korenwinder, van Dyk, the redoubtable Slatius and others,
were giving away under torture the details of the aborted conspiracy
against the life of Maurice of Nassau, Stadtholder of Holland,
Gelderland, Utrecht and Overyssel, Captain and Admiral-General of the
State, Prince of Orange, and virtual ruler of Protestant and republican
Netherlands.

Traitors all of them--would-be assassins--the Stadtholder whom they had
planned to murder was showing them no mercy. As he had sent John of
Barneveld to the scaffold to assuage his own thirst for supreme power
and satisfy his own ambitions, so he was ready to send John of
Barneveld's sons to death and John of Barneveld's widow to sorrow and
loneliness.

The sons of John of Barneveld had planned to avenge their father's death
by the committal of a cruel and dastardly murder: fate and the treachery
of mercenary accomplices had intervened, and now Groeneveld was on the
eve of condemnation, and Stoutenburg was a wanderer on the f