Now, he has finally met his real father, an English nobleman, and realized his true identity as Sir Percy Blake of Blakeney, heir to a large estate in Sussex.

After being given medical treatment, Pythagoras reveals that Stoutenburg has a new plan to assassinate the Stadtholder, namely, the Archduchess Isabella has troops crossing the IJssel and coming up from Kleve.

Plunging into the river IJseel to evade his attackers, his horse is shot through the neck and the waters sweep over his head.

Fugitives from Ede have reached the Stadtholder's camp at Utrecht and it soon becomes obvious that Diogenes has failed to deliver orders to Messire Marquet and Mynheer De Keysere.

Diogenes, Pythagoras, and Socrates follow Nicholaes and manage to frustrate his plans to deliver the Stadtholder into the hands of the Archduchess.

However, before the traitorous Nicholaes meets up with Lord Stoutenburg, he shoots at Diogenes with a poisoned bullet and the resultant smoke causes him to go blind.

Stoutenburg is determined to hang his nemesis Diogenes, and thinks that Gilda will prefer a strong masterful man to a weak helpless one.

Stoutenburg then tells Gilda's father that his son-in-law is a traitor, and knowing the man's views on such behaviour, leaves him alone in the dining hall with Diogenes and a loaded gun.