Wilhelm suddenly interrupted his explanation, for Andreas had suddenly started up, upsetting his stool, and exclaimed:
“It’s coming! The dove! Roland, my fore man, there it comes!”
For the first time Wilhelm heard the boy’s lips utter his father’s exclamation. Some great emotion must have stirred his heart, and in truth he was not mistaken; the speck piercing the air, which his keen eye had discovered, was no longer a mere spot, but an oblong something--a bird, the pigeon!
Wilhelm seized the flag on the balcony, and waved it as joyously as ever conqueror unfurled his banner after a hard-won fight. The dove came nearer--alighted, slipped into the cote, and a few minutes after the musician appeared with a tiny letter.
“To the magistrates!” cried Wilhelm. “Take it to your husband at once. Oh! dear lady, dear lady, finish what the dove has begun. Thank God! thank God! they are already at North-Aa. This will save the poor people from despair! And now one thing more! You shall have the roasted bird, but take this grain too; a barley-porridge is the best medicine for Barbara’s condition; I’ve tried it!”
When evening came, and the musician had told his parents the joyful news, he ordered the blue dove with the white breast to be caught. “Kill it outside the house,” said he, “I can’t bear to see it.”
Andreas soon came back with the beheaded pigeon.
His lips were bloody, Wilhelm knew from what, yet he did not reprove the hungry boy, but merely said:
Early the next morning a second dove returned. The letters the winged messengers had brought were read aloud from the windows of the town-hall, and the courage of the populace, pressed to the extremest limits of endurance, flickered up anew and helped them bear their misery. One of the letters was addressed to the magistrates, the other to Janus Dousa; they sounded confident and hopeful, and the Prince, the faithful shield of liberty, the friend and guide of the people, had recovered from his sickness and visited the vessels and troops intended for the relief of Leyden. Rescue was so near, but the north-east wind would not change, and the water did not rise. Great numbers of citizens, soldiers, magistrates and women stood on the citadel and other elevated places, gazing into the distance.