ere is the burgher guard; and all the respectable citizens
are with you."

"That is true enough," the merchant said; "but they are always slow
to take action, and I might be killed, and my place burnt before
they came on to the ground. I will send Maria with you down to the
Hague to her aunt's. If this be the work of the man we wot of, it
may be that he will then cease his efforts, and the bad feeling he
has raised will die away; but in truth, I shall never feel that
Maria is safe until I hear that his evil course has come to an
end."

"If I come across him, I will bring it to an end, and that
quickly," Rupert said, wrathfully. "At any rate, I think that the
burgomaster ought to take steps to protect the house."

"The council laugh at the idea of danger," Van Duyk said. "To them
the idea that I should be charged with dealing with the enemy is so
supremely ridiculous that they make light of it, and are inclined
to think that the state of things I describe is purely a matter of
my own imagination. If I were attacked they would come as quickly
as they could to my aid; but they may be all too late.

"There is one thing, Rupert. This enemy hates you, and desires your
death as much as he wishes to carry off my daughter, and through
her to become possessed of my money bags. If, then, this work is
his doing, assuredly he will bring it to a head while you are here,
so as to gratify both his hate and his greed at once."

"It is a pity that you cannot make some public statement, that
unless your daughter marries a man of whom you approve you will
give her no fortune whatever."

"I might do that," Van Duyk said; "but he knows that if he forced
her to marry him, I should still give her my money. In the second
place, she has a large fortune of her own, that came to her through
her mother. And lastly, I believe that it is not marriage he wishes
now, for he must be sure that Maria would die rather than accept
him, but to carry her off, and then place some enormous sum as a
ransom on condition of her being restored safe and unharmed to me.
He knows that I would give all that I possess to save her from his
hands."

"The only way out of it that I see," Rupert said, "is for me to
find him, and put an end to him."

"You will oblige me, Rupert, if, during the time you remain here,
you would wear this fine mail shirt under your waistcoat. You do
not wear your cuirass here; and your enemy might get a dagger
planted between your sho