Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/287

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE DAWN OF OCTOBER THIRD

GYSBERT rowed away frantically from the scene of destruction. He had not, for the moment, the slightest idea what direction he was taking, but his mind was actively at work. The wall of Leyden had fallen in for the space of nearly a quarter of a mile! If the Spaniards had the faintest suspicion of this, he reasoned, they would flock immediately to the scene, and make an easy and terrible entrance. There was no defending the breach from the inside, for the brave, but hunger-enfeebled corps of John Van der Does would be as nothing before the fierce thousands of the Spanish army. To his mind there remained but one course,—he must in some way get word to Admiral Boisot and his Sea Beggars, and let them

261