第42章

"The scoundrel!" said Carl savagely when the boys reached the street. "He ought to be sent to jail at once. If I had been in your place, Peter, I certainly should have killed him outright!""He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands," was Peter's quiet reply. "It appears he has been arrested before under a charge of housebreaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe constitutes a burglary in the eyes of the law. He was armed with a knife, too, and that makes it worse for him, poor fellow!""Poor fellow!" mimicked Carl. "One would think he was your brother!""So he is my brother, and yours too, Carl Schummel, for that matter," answered Peter, looking into Carl's eye. "We cannot say what we might have become under other circumstances. WE have been bolstered up from evil, since the hour we were born. Ahappy home and good parents might have made that man a fine fellow instead of what he is. God grant that the law may cure and not crush him!""Amen to that!" said Lambert heartily while Ludwig van Holp looked at his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church at home had lived to grow up beside him.

"Humph!" said Carl. "It's all very well to be saintly and forgiving, and all that sort of thing, but I'm naturally hard.

All these fine ideas seem to rattle off me like hailstones--and it's nobody's business, either, if they do."Peter recognized a touch of good feeling in this clumsy concession. Holding out his hand, he said in a frank, hearty tone, "Come, lad, shake hands, and let us be good friends, even if we don't exactly agree on all questions.""We do agree better than you think," sulked Carl as he returned Peter's grasp.

"All right," responded Peter briskly. "Now, Van Mounen, we await Benjamin's wishes. Where would he like to go?""To the Egyptian Museum?" answered Lambert after holding a brief consultation with Ben.

"That is on the Breedstraat. To the museum let it be. Come, boys!"The Beleaguered Cities"This open square before us," said Lambert, as he and Ben walked on together, "is pretty in summer, with its shady trees. They call it the Ruine. Years ago it was covered with houses, and the Rapenburg Canal, here, ran through the street. Well, one day a barge loaded with forty thousand pounds of gunpowder, bound for Delft, was lying alongside, and the bargemen took a notion to cook their dinner on the deck, and before anyone knew it, sir, the whole thing blew up, killing lots of persons and scattering about three hundred houses to the winds.""What!" exclaimed Ben. "Did the explosion destroy three hundred houses!""Yes, sir, my father was in Leyden at the time. He says it was terrible. The explosion occurred just at noon and it was like a volcano. All this part of the town was on fire in an instant, buildings tumbling down and men, women, and children groaning under the ruins. The king himself came to the city and acted nobly, Father says, staying out in the streets all night, encouraging the survivors in their efforts to arrest the fire and rescue as many as possible from under the heaps of stone and rubbish. Through his means a collection for the benefit of the sufferers was raised throughout the kingdom, besides a hundred thousand guilders paid out of the treasury. Father was only nineteen years old then. It was in 1807, I believe, but he remembers it perfectly. A friend of his, Professor Luzac, was among the killed. They have a tablet erected to his memory, in Saint Peter's Church, farther on--the queerest thing you ever saw, with an image of the professor carved upon it, representing him just as he looked when he was found after the explosion.""What a strange idea! Isn't Boerhaave's monument in Saint Peter's also?""I cannot remember. Perhaps Peter knows."The captain delighted Ben by saying that the monument was there and that he thought they might be able to see it during the day.

"Lambert," continued Peter, "ask Ben if he saw Van der Werf's portrait at the town hall last night?""No," said Lambert, "I can answer for him. It was too late to go in. I say, boys, it is really wonderful how much Ben knows.

Why, he has told me a volume of Dutch history already. I'll wager he has the siege of Leyden at his tongue's end.""His tongue must burn, then," interposed Ludwig, "for if Bilderdyk's account is true, it was a pretty hot affair."Ben was looking at them with an inquiring smile.

"We are speaking of the siege of Leyden," explained Lambert.

"Oh, yes," said Ben, eagerly, "I had forgotten all about it.

This was the very place. Let's give old Van der Werf three cheers. Hur--"Van Mounen uttered a hasty "Hush!" and explained that, patriotic as the Dutch were, the police would soon have something to say if a party of boys cheered in the street at midday.

"What? Not cheer Van der Werf?" cried Ben, indignantly. "One of the greatest chaps in history? Only think! Didn't he hold out against those murderous Spaniards for months and months? There was the town, surrounded on all sides by the enemy; great black forts sending fire and death into the very heart of the city--but no surrender! Every man a hero--women and children, too, brave and fierce as lions, provisions giving out, the very grass from between the paving stones gone--till people were glad to eat horses and cats and dogs and rats. Then came the plague--hundreds dying in the streets--but no surrender! Then when they could bear no more, when the people, brave as they were, crowded about Van der Werf in the public square begging him to give up, what did the noble old burgomaster say? 'I have sworn to defend this city, and with God's help, I MEAN TO DO IT!

If my body can satisfy your hunger, take it, and divide it among you, but expect no surrender so long as I am alive.' Hurrah!

hur--"