he hands of
the enemy. This victory, which swept off more than a thousand of the
enemy, was purchased by the conqueror cheaply enough, for he did not
lose more than two men. Three hundred of the leaguers who surrendered
were cut down without mercy on the spot, as a sally from Antwerp was
momentarily dreaded.

Before the battle actually commenced no anticipation of such an event
had been entertained at Antwerp. The Prince of Orange, who had got
early information of it, had taken the precaution the day before of
causing the bridge which unites the town with Osterweel to be destroyed,
in order, as he gave out, to prevent the Calvinists within the town
going out to join the army of Thoulouse. A more probable motive seems
to have been a fear lest the Catholics should attack the army of the
Gueux general in the rear, or lest Launoy should prove victorious, and
try to force his way into the town. On the same pretext the gates of
the city were also shut by his orders, arnd the inhabitants, who did not
comprehend the meaning of all these movements, fluctuated between
curiosity and alarm, until the sound of artillery from Osterweel
announced to them what there was going on. In clamorous crowds they all
ran to the walls and ramparts, from which, as the wind drove the smoke
from the contending armies, they commanded a full view of the whole
battle. Both armies were so near to the town that they could discern
their banners, and clearly distinguish the voices of the victors and the
vanquished. More terrible even than the battle itself was the spectacle
which this town now presented. Each of the conflicting armies had its
friends and its enemies on the wall. All that went on in the plain
roused on the ramparts exultation or dismay; on the issue of the
conflict the fate of each spectator seemed to depend. Every movement on
the field could be read in the faces of the townsmen; defeat and
triumph, the terror of the conquered, and the fury of the conqueror.
Here a painful but idle wish to support those who are giving way, to
rally those who fly; there an equally futile desire to overtake them,
to slay them, to extirpate them. Now the Gueux fly, and ten thousand
men rejoice; Thoulouse's last place and refuge is in flames, and the
hopes of twenty thousand citizens are consumed with him.

But the first bewilderment of alarm soon gave place to a frantic desire
of revenge. Shrieking aloud, wringing her hands and with dishevelled
hair, the wi