riumph, leaving their dead and dying in
the breach.

Four days later, Berendrecht, with a picked party of English troops,
stole out for a reconnaissance, not wishing to trust other eyes than his
own in the imminent peril of the place.

The expedition was successful. A few prisoners were taken, and valuable
information was obtained, but these advantages were counterbalanced by a
severe disaster. The vigilant and devoted little governor, before
effecting his entrance into the sally port, was picked off by a
sharpshooter, and died the next day. This seemed the necessary fate of
the commandants of Ostend, where the operations seemed more like a
pitched battle lasting three years than an ordinary siege. Gieselles, Van
Loon, Bievry, and now Berendrecht, had successively fallen at the post of
duty since the beginning of the year. Not one of them was more sincerely
deplored than Berendrecht. His place was supplied by Colonel Uytenhoove,
a stalwart, hirsute, hard-fighting Dutchman, the descendant of an ancient
race, and seasoned in many a hard campaign.

The enemy now being occupied in escarping and furnishing with batteries
the positions he had gained, with the obvious intention of attacking the
new counterscarp, it was resolved to prepare for the possible loss of
this line of fortifications by establishing another and still narrower
one within it.

Half the little place had been shorn away by the first change. Of the
half which was still in possession of the besieged about one-third was
now set off, and in this little corner of earth, close against the new
harbour, was set up their last refuge. They called the new citadel Little
Troy, and announced, with pardonable bombast, that they would hold out
there as long as the ancient Trojans had defended Ilium. With perfect
serenity the engineers set about their task with line, rule, and level,
measuring out the bulwarks and bastions, the miniature salients,
half-moons, and ditches, as neatly and methodically as if there were no
ceaseless cannonade in their ears, and as if the workmen were not at
every moment summoned to repel assaults upon the outward wall. They sent
careful drawings of Little Troy to Maurice and the States, and received
every encouragement to persevere, together with promises of ultimate
relief.

But there was one serious impediment to the contemplated construction of
the new earth-works. They had no earth. Nearly everything solid had been
already scooped awa