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Day after day went by and yet no relief came, but the wind, which had long blown steadily from the cast, suddenly changed to the westward. At length Albert and Berthold, who had regularly visited Jaqueline's tower, discovered the fourth pigeon. They eagerly examined its wing, beneath it was a letter which came from the admiral.
Jaqueline's anguish of mind was increased from knowing too well the consequences of the delay to the starving inhabitants of the beleaguered city. Though confident of the resolution of her father and the commandant, she was aware of the direful effect which starvation had already produced among the inhabitants. Would they continue to hold out?
The burgomaster, who had hitherto held out so bravely, for a moment seemed stunned, but quickly recovering himself he directed Berthold to send all the servants of the house to him, but no one was able to afford the slightest information to account for Jaqueline's disappearance. "I would lay my life that the Baron Van Arenberg has had something to do with it," exclaimed Berthold.
The chief magistrate had come up, as was his wont, to consider the measures which it might be necessary to take for the benefit of the city over which he presided. Here, under ordinary circumstances, he was not likely to be interrupted by visitors. Jaqueline's thoughts were recalled to the present moment by hearing a light footstep ascending the stairs of the tower.
"Heaven defend him and his brave troops," murmured Jaqueline; and she thought of one who had accompanied the Count to the field and who had from his earliest days engaged in the desperate struggle both at sea and on shore. Again the burgomaster was silent, and Jaqueline's thoughts wandered far away to the army of Count Louis.
He had one scheme for her marriage; but his brother, the Count, had wished to give her to his own second son, who was almost an infant; and the Duke of Burgundy had designs on her for his half-brother Boemond; and among these various disputants, Esclairmonde had never failed to find support against whichever proposal was forced upon her, until the coalition between the Dukes of Burgundy and Brabant becoming too strong, she had availed herself of Countess Jaqueline's discontent to evade them both.
Van Arenberg, anxious for Jaqueline's safety, and perhaps for his own, urged his crew to row away from the point where the engagement appeared to be raging most furiously. Already round shot and bullets came flying across the water, and a stray one might chance to hit the boat. The men appeared undecided which way to go, when one of them cried out, "There's a boat astern!
"You may rest here in security, my pretty maiden," he said; "and I trust ere many days are over to restore you to the arms of your brave father." Not long afterwards the order was issued for the fleet once more to advance, and Jaqueline's heart beat high with hope, for the second dyke was attacked.
Whenever she was not required to control, console, or persuade the Queen, Esclairmonde spent most of her time in a chamber apart from the chatter of Jaqueline's little court, where she was weaving, in the delicate point- lace work she had learnt in her Flemish convent, an exquisite robe, such as were worn by priests at Mass.
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