oops in that district, which were comparatively insignificant
in numbers. Vere thought otherwise. He maintained that the archduke was
already in force within a few hours' march of them, as he had always
supposed would be the case. His opinion was not shared by the rest, and
he went back to his truckle-bed, feeling that a brief repose was
necessary for the heavy work which would soon be upon him. At midnight
the Englishman was again called from his slumbers. Another messenger,
sent directly from the States-General at Ostend, had made his way to the
stadholder. This time there was no possibility of error, for Colonel
Piron had sent the accord with the garrison commanders of the forts which
had been so shamefully violated, and which bore the signature of the
archduke.

It was now perfectly obvious that a pitched battle was to be fought
before another sunset, and most anxious were the deliberations in that
brief midsummer's night. The dilemma was as grave a one as
commander-in-chief had ever to solve in a few hours. A portentous change
had come over the prospects of the commonwealth since the arrival of
these despatches. But a few hours before, and never had its destiny
seemed so secure, its attitude more imposing. The little republic, which
Spain had been endeavouring forty years long to subjugate, had already
swept every Spanish soldier out of its territory, had repeatedly carried
fire and sword into Spain itself, and even into its distant dependencies,
and at that moment--after effecting in a masterly manner the landing of a
great army in the very face of the man who claimed to be sovereign of all
the Netherlands, and after marching at ease through the heart of his
territory--was preparing a movement, with every prospect of success,
which should render the hold of that sovereign on any portion of
Netherland soil as uncertain and shifting as the sands on which the
States army was now encamped.

The son of the proscribed and murdered rebel stood at the head of as
powerful and well-disciplined an army as had ever been drawn up in line
of battle on that blood-stained soil. The daughter of the man who had so
long oppressed the provinces might soon be a fugitive from the land over
which she had so recently been endowed with perpetual sovereignty. And
now in an instant these visions were fading like a mirage.

The archduke, whom poverty and mutiny were to render powerless against
invasion, was following close up upon the heel