Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/64

42 Jacqueline. What dost thou think of this? I saw Dirk Willumhoog in the city this morning!”

“Gysbert! thou art surely joking! That cannot be possible. Since he was expelled from the city, how could he get back?”

“Ask me not how he got back, for I do not know. But the best of it is that he did not see me, and he was so disguised that had it  not been for certain circumstances, I should  never have known him. I had strolled up Hengist Hill after leaving the Breede Straat,  and had climbed into a tree to get a better  view of the Spanish army outside the walls. I was sitting in the branches very quietly, when a man in a long cloak and big slouching  hat came out of the grove and sat down right  under my tree. Thinking himself alone, he took off his hat, threw aside his cloak, and  then to my great surprise, pulled off the thick  beard that covered his face!

“‘Ah, but it is hot!’ I heard him mutter. Then he stood up and stretched his arms, and