ust to the two secretaries of state at Madrid. "I
have done my best to induce Fuentes to accept that which the patent
secured him, and Count Peter is complaining that Fuentes showed him the
patent so late only to play him a trick. There is a rascally pack of
meddlers here, and the worst of them all are the women, whom I
particularly give to the devil. There is no end to the squabbles as to
who shall take the lead in relieving Gertruydenberg."

Mansfeld at last came ponderously up in the neighbourhood of Turnhout.
There was a brilliant little skirmish, in the neighbourhood of this
place, in which a hundred and fifty Dutch cavalry under the famous
brothers Bax defeated four hundred picked lancers of Spain and Italy. But
Mansfeld could get nothing but skirmishes. In vain he plunged about among
the caltrops and man-traps. In vain he knocked at the fortifications of
Hohenlo on the east and of Maurice on the west. He found them
impracticable, impregnable, obdurate. It was Maurice's intention to take
his town at as small sacrifice of life as possible. A trumpet was sent on
some trifling business to Mansfeld, in reply to a communication made by
the general to Maurice.

"Why does your master," said the choleric veteran to the trumpeter, "why
does Prince Maurice, being a lusty young commander as he is, not come out
of his trenches into the open field and fight me like a man, where honour
and fame await him?"

"Because my master," answered the trumpeter, "means to live to be a lusty
old commander like your excellency, and sees no reason to-day to give you
an advantage."

At this the bystanders laughed, rather at the expense of the veteran.

Meantime there were not many incidents within the lines or within the
city to vary the monotony of the scientific siege.

On the land side, as has been seen, the city was enclosed and built out
of human sight by another Gertruydenberg. On the wide estuary of the
Meuse, a chain of war ships encircled the sea-front, in shape of a half
moon, lying so close to each other that it was scarcely possible even for
a messenger to swim out of a dark night.

The hardy adventurers who attempted that feat with tidings of despair
were almost invariably captured.

This blockading fleet took regular part in the daily cannonade; while, on
the other hand, the artillery practice from the landbatteries of Maurice
and Hohenlo was more perfect than anything ever known before in the
Netherlands or France.