soldiers and officers sat around the table, intermixed with the men
of Liege, some of them of the very lowest description, among whom Nikkel
Blok the butcher, placed near De la Marck himself, was distinguished by
his tucked up sleeves, which displayed arms smeared to the elbows
with blood, as was the cleaver which lay on the table before him. The
soldiers wore, most of them, their beards long and grisly, in imitation
of their leader, had their hair plaited and turned upwards, in the
manner that ought best improve the natural ferocity of their appearance,
and intoxicated, as many of them seemed to be, partly with the sense of
triumph, and partly with the long libations of wine which they had been
quaffing, presented a spectacle at once hideous and disgusting. The
language which they held, and the songs which they sang, without even
pretending to pay each other the compliment of listening, were so full
of license and blasphemy, that Quentin blessed God that the extremity of
the noise prevented them from being intelligible to his companion.

It only remains to say of the better class of burghers who were
associated with William de la Marck's soldiers in this fearful revel
that the wan faces and anxious mien of the greater part showed that they
either disliked their entertainment, or feared their companions, while
some of lower education, or a nature more brutal, saw only in the
excesses of the soldier a gallant bearing, which they would willingly
imitate, and the tone of which they endeavoured to catch so far as was
possible, and stimulated themselves to the task, by swallowing immense
draughts of wine and schwarzbier [black beer]--indulging a vice 'which
at all times was too common in the Low Countries.

The preparations for the feast had been as disorderly as the quality of
the company. The whole of the Bishop's plate--nay, even that belonging
to the service of the Church--for the Boar of Ardennes regarded not the
imputation of sacrilege--was mingled with black jacks, or huge tankards
made of leather, and drinking horns of the most ordinary description.

One circumstance of horror remains to be added and accounted for, and we
willingly leave the rest of the scene to the imagination of the reader.
Amidst the wild license assumed by the soldiers of De la Marck, one who
was excluded from the table (a lanzknecht, remarkable for his courage
and for his daring behaviour during the storm of the evening), had
impudently snatche