Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/80

58 facing starvation, and feared lest the weaker ones would lose courage and yield up the  city. Paul Buys sent word back to Van der Werf that the Prince of Orange was on the  point of putting into execution a scheme of  release that he had long been considering,  and would send word by one of the carrier  pigeons when he was ready to put it into  effect.

Buys then told Gysbert that hereafter he would not have to come as far as Delft with  the pigeons, but could leave them at the  farmhouse of Julius Van Shaick, not far  beyond Leyden, from whence they would be  conveyed to Delft in safety. Before the boy left for his homeward journey, Buys  superintended him in the disposal of such a  meal as he had not seen for many a long day,  and he sighed only that he could not convey  some of it to Jacqueline and Vrouw Voorhaas.

Trusting to no slow-moving canal vessel, but relying mainly on the swiftness of his