Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/218

192 while the burgomaster strode restlessly up and down the room.

“Jan, Jan!” he cried at length. “The Lord hath put more on my shoulders than  mortal man can bear! Dost thou know, it is by my will alone that this city holds out? Daily I receive the most cajoling and fair-spoken notes from Commander Valdez. He makes the most extravagant promises of  mercy and leniency if I will only open the  gates. ’Tis but a siren’s song, as everyone well knows! Yet the dissatisfied ones are clamorous to try once more the mercy of the  Spaniard!—They accuse me of starving and  killing them for a mere question of my personal pride. My God! has not one of my own family already died of the plague? Is not my own wife even now desperately ill? Am I the gainer by my policy? Alas, no! Jan, a dead body was found placed against my door yesterday morning. We all know what that means,—they lay the city’s terrible