abric in itself almost impregnable, provided he were
furnished with the means to maintain what he had so painfully
constructed.

"The whole is in such condition," said he, "that in opinion of all
competent military judges it would stand though all Holland and Zeeland
should come to destroy our palisades. Their attacks must be made at
immense danger, and disadvantage, so severely can we play upon them with
our artillery and musketry. Every boat is, garnished with the most dainty
captains and soldiers, so that if the enemy should attempt to assail us
now, they would come back with broken heads."

Yet in the midst of his apparent triumph he had, at times, almost despair
in his heart. He felt really at the last gasp. His troops had dwindled to
the mere shadow of an army, and they were forced to live almost upon air.
The cavalry had nearly vanished. The garrisons in the different cities
were starving. The burghers had no food for the soldiers nor for
themselves. "As for the rest of the troops," said Alexander, "they are
stationed where they have nothing to subsist upon, save salt water and
the dykes, and if the Lord does not grant a miracle, succour, even if
sent by your Majesty, will arrive too late." He assured his master, that
he could not go on more than five or six days longer, that he had been
feeding his soldiers for a long time from hand to mouth, and that it
would soon be impossible for him to keep his troops together. If he did
not disband them they would run away.

His pictures were most dismal, his supplications for money very moving
but he never alluded to himself. All his anxiety, all his tenderness,
were for his soldiers. "They must have food," he said: "'Tis impossible
to sustain them any longer by driblets, as I have done for a long time.
Yet how can I do it without money? And I have none at all, nor do I see
where to get a single florin."

But these revelations were made only to his master's most secret ear. His
letters, deciphered after three centuries, alone make manifest the almost
desperate condition in which the apparently triumphant general was
placed, and the facility with which his antagonists, had they been well
guided and faithful to themselves, might have driven him into the sea.

But to those adversaries he maintained an attitude of serene and smiling
triumph. A spy, sent from the city to obtain intelligence for the anxious
burghers, had gained admission into his lines, was captured and brou