It was late in the evening before a warder appeared at the door, and said that the councillor was below, and that the prisoner was to be brought before him. Ned was led by the two men to a chamber on the ground floor. Here Von Aert, with two of his colleagues, was seated at a table, the former's clerk standing behind him.
“This is a prisoner I myself made this morning,” Von Aert said to his companions. “I overtook him two miles this side of Axel, and questioned him. He admitted that he came from Holland; and his answers were so unsatisfactory that I ordered him strictly to call upon me at Antwerp, not having time at that moment to question him further. Instead of obeying, he struck off from the road and took that through Ghent; and I should have heard no more of him, had I not by chance encountered him this morning in the street here. Has he been searched?” he asked the warder.
“No, your excellency. You gave no orders that he should be examined.”
“Fools!” the councillor said angrily; “this is the way you do your duty. Had he been the bearer of important correspondence he might have destroyed it by now.”
“We have not left him, your excellency. He has never been alone for a moment, and had no opportunity whatever for destroying anything.”
“Well, search that bundle first,” the councillor said.
The bundle was found to contain nothing suspicious.
“Now, take off his doublet and boots and examine them carefully. Let not a seam or corner escape you.”
Accustomed to the work, one of the warders had scarcely taken the doublet in his hand when he proclaimed that there was a parcel sewn up in the lining.
“I thought so!” Von Aert exclaimed, beaming with satisfaction at his own perspicacity. “I thought there was something suspicious about the fellow. I believe I can almost smell out a heretic or a traitor.”
The councillor's colleagues murmured their admiration at his acuteness.
“What have we here?” Von Aert went on, as he examined the packet. “A sealed parcel addressed 'To the Blue Cap in the South Corner of the Market Square of Brussels.' What think you of that, my friends, for mystery and treason? Now, let us see the contents. Ah, ten letters without addresses! But I see there are marks different from each other on the corners. Ah!” he went on with growing excitement, as he tore one open and glanced at the contents, “from the arch traitor himself to conspirators here in Brussels. This is an important capture indeed. Now, sirrah, what have you to say to this? For whom are these letters intended?”
“I know nothing of the contents of the letters, worshipful sir,” Ned said, falling on his knees and assuming an appearance of abject terror. “They were delivered to me at Haarlem, and I was told that I should have five nobles if I carried them to Brussels and delivered them safely to a man who would meet me in the south corner of the Market Square of Brussels. I was to hold the packet in my hand and sling my bundle upon my stick, so that he might know me. He was to have a blue cap on, and was to touch me on the shoulder and ask me 'How blows the wind in Holland?' and that, worshipful sir, is all I know about it. I could not tell that there was any treason in the business, else not for fifty nobles would I have undertaken it.”
“You lie, you young villain!” the councillor shouted. “Do you try to persuade me that the Prince of Orange would have intrusted documents of such importance to the first boy he met in the street? In the first place you must be a heretic.”
“I don't know about heretics,” Ned said, rising to his feet and speaking stubbornly. “I am of the religion my father taught me, and I would not pretend that I was a Catholic, not to save my life.”
“There you are, you see,” the councillor said triumphantly to his colleagues. “Look at the obstinacy and insolence of these Hollanders. Even this brat of a boy dares to tell us that he is not a Catholic. Take him away,” he said to the warder, “and see that he is securely kept. We may want to question him again; but in any case he will go to the gallows tomorrow or next day.”
Ned was at once led away.
“What think you?” Von Aert asked his colleagues as the door closed behind the prisoner. “Is it worth while to apply the torture to him at once to obtain from him the names of those for whom these letters were intended? It is most important for us to know. Look at this letter; it is from the prince himself, and refers to preparations making for a general rising.”
“I should hardly think the boy would have been intrusted with so important a secret,” one of the other councillors said; “for it would be well known he would be forced by torture to reveal it if these letters were to be found upon him. I think that the story he tells us is a true one, and that it is more likely they would be given him to deliver to some person who would possess the key to these marks on the letters.”
“Well, at any rate no harm can be done by applying the screws,” the councillor said. “If he knows they will make him speak, I warrant you.”
The other two agreed.
“If you will allow me to suggest, your excellency,” Genet said humbly, “that it might be the better way to try first if any such as this Blue Cap exists. The boy might be promised his life if he could prove that the story was true. Doubtless there is some fixed hour at which he was to meet this Blue Cap. We might let him go to meet him, keeping of course a strict watch over him. Then if any such man appears and speaks to him we could pounce upon him at once and wring from him the key to these marks. If no such man appears we should then know that the story was but a device to deceive, and could then obtain by some means the truth from him.”
The suggestion met with approval.
“That is a very good plan, and shall be carried out. Send for the prisoner again.”
Ned was brought down again.
“We see that you are young,” Von Aert said, “and you have doubtless been misled in this matter, and knew not that you were carrying treasonable correspondence. We therefore are disposed to treat you leniently. At what time were you to meet this Blue Cap in the market?”
“Within an hour of sunset,” Ned replied. “I am to be there at sunset and to wait for an hour; and was told that he would not fail to come in that time, but that if he did I was to come again the next day.”
“It is to be hoped that he will not fail you,” Von Aert said grimly, “for we shall not be disposed to wait his pleasure. Tomorrow evening you will go with a packet and deliver it to the man when he comes to you. Beware that you do not try to trick us, for you will be closely watched, and it will be the worse for you if you attempt treachery. If the man comes those who are there will know how to deal with him.”
“And shall I be at liberty to depart?” Ned asked doubtfully.
“Of course you will,” Von Aert replied; “we should then have no further occasion for you, and you would have proved to us that your story was a true one, and that you were really in ignorance that there was any harm in carrying the packet hither.”
Ned was perfectly well aware that the councillor was lying, and that even had he met the man in the blue cap he would be dragged back to prison and put to death, and that the promise meant absolutely nothing — the Spaniards having no hesitation in breaking the most solemn oaths made to heretics. He had, indeed, only asked the question because he thought that to assent too willingly to the proposal might arouse suspicion. It was the very thing he had been hoping for, and which offered the sole prospect of escape from a death by torture, for it would at least give him the chance of a dash for freedom.
He had named an hour after sunset partly because it was the hour which would have been probably chosen by those who wished that the meeting should take place unobserved, but still more because his chances of escape would be vastly greater were the attempt made after dark. The three councillors sat for some time talking over the matter after Ned had been removed. The letters had all been read. They had been carefully written, so as to give no information if they should fall into the wrong hands, and none of them contained any allusion whatever to past letters or previous negotiations.