H. C. Bailey

“ No one spoke yet, and Sonoy's finger still moved on the map.
Then Sonoy looked up into my eyes.
"There is despair!" he repeated. In truth there was, and little else in the justice-room at Breuthe then. No one answered him, and he leant back in his chair with one hand lying along the arm of it. Then he began to speak slowly in a deep resonant voice:
"We are all of one mind," said he. "No force of ours can help Alkmaar in straits like these. There is no hope in us, as you say. But do not forget—in the last resort the man who cares not what he loses must win. ”

“ We were all silent. I watched Sonoy's finger, and my eyes grew bigger, and my hands clenched as I watched it and knew what he meant. Gaspar lolled back in his chair, looking at us lazily from half-shut eyes, with a smile on his face. St. Trond gazed across the room through the window at the houses across the street; but, as I think, he did not see them. The burgomaster fidgeted to and fro, and beat the table with his hands, and shuffled and turned his eyes now to us and now to Cornput, whose whole face was curled up into a sneer at Sonoy and me. ”

“ Vitelli will run like a rabbit!" cried Gaspar.
"Well, gentlemen?" said Sonoy.
"But the damage!" cried the burgomaster. "The harvest is not in yet, and the country will be all under water."
"Naturally," grunted Gaspar.
"But consider the losses to the peasantry," cried the burgomaster.
"Think of the loss of Alkmaar," said I.
"Have you counted the cost?" said Cornput sharply. "It is well enough for those who have no stake in the country to talk glibly of ruining it," and he gave me an angry glance. ”