e willing that
their troops should return to the besieged place under the command of
Maurice, whose presence alone, as he loudly and publicly protested, was
worth four thousand men.

But it was too late. The six days were rapidly passing, away. The
governor of Boulogne, Campagnolo, succeeded, by Henry's command, in
bringing a small reinforcement of two or three hundred men into the
citadel of Calais during the night of the 22nd of April. This devoted
little band made their way, when the tide was low, along the flats which
stretched between the fort of Rysbank and the sea. Sometimes wading up to
the neck in water, sometimes swimming for their lives, and during a
greater part of their perilous, march clinging so close to the hostile
fortress as almost to touch its guns, the gallant adventurers succeeded
in getting into the citadel in time to be butchered with the rest of the
garrison on the following day. For so soon as the handful of men had
gained admittance to the gates--although otherwise the aspect of affairs
was quite unchanged--the rash and weak De Vidosan proclaimed that the
reinforcements stipulated in his conditional capitulation having arrived,
he should now resume hostilities. Whereupon he opened fire, upon the
town, and a sentry was killed. De Rosne, furious, at what he considered a
breach of faith, directed a severe cannonade against the not very
formidable walls of the castle. During the artillery engagement which
ensued the Prince of Orange, who had accompanied De Rosne to the siege,
had a very narrow escape. A cannon-ball from the town took off the heads
of two Spaniards standing near him, bespattering him with their blood and
brains. He was urged to retire, but assured those about him that he came
of too good a house to be afraid. His courage was commendable, but it
seems not to have occurred to him that the place for his father's son was
not by the aide of the general who was doing the work of his father's
murderer. While his brother Maurice with a fleet of twenty Dutch
war-ships was attempting in vain to rescue Calais from the grasp of the
Spanish king, Philip William of Nassau was looking on, a pleased and
passive spectator of the desperate and unsuccessful efforts at defence.
The assault was then ordered? The-first storm was repulsed, mainly by the
Dutch companies, who fought in the breach until most of their numbers
were killed or wounded, their captains Dominique and Le Gros having both
fallen. The