y in the perpetual delving. The sea-dykes had been
robbed of their material, so that the coming winter might find besiegers
and besieged all washed together into the German Ocean, and it was hard
digging and grubbing among the scanty cellarages of the dilapidated
houses. But there were plenty of graves, filled with the results of three
years' hard fighting. And now, not only were all the cemeteries within
the precincts shovelled and carted in mass to the inner fortifications,
but rewards being offered of ten stivers for each dead body, great heaps
of disinterred soldiers were piled into the new ramparts. Thus these
warriors, after laying down their lives for the cause of freedom, were
made to do duty after death. Whether it were just or no thus to disturb
the repose--if repose it could be called--of the dead that they might
once more protect the living, it can scarcely be doubted that they took
ample revenge on the already sufficiently polluted atmosphere.

On the 17th June the foe sprang a mine under the western bulwark; close
to a countermine exploded by the garrison the day before. The assailants
thronged as merrily as usual to the breach, and were met with customary
resolution by the besieged; Governor Uytenhoove, clad in complete armour,
leading his troops. The enemy, after an hour's combat, was repulsed with
heavy loss, but the governor fell in the midst of the fight. Instantly he
was seized by the legs by a party of his own men, some English
desperadoes among the number, who, shouting that the colonel was dead,
were about to render him the last offices by plundering his body. The
ubiquitous Fleming, observing the scene, flew to the rescue and, with the
assistance of a few officers, drove off these energetic friends, and
taking off the governor's casque, discovered that he still breathed. That
he would soon have ceased to do so, had he been dragged much farther in
his harness over that jagged and precipitous pile of rubbish, was
certain. He was desperately wounded, and of course incapacitated for his
post. Thus, in that year, before the summer solstice, a fifth commandant
had fallen.

On the same day, simultaneously with this repulse in the West Bulwark,
the enemy made himself at last completely master of the Polder. Here,
too, was a savage hand-to-hand combat with broadswords and pikes, and
when the pikes were broken, with great clubs and stakes pulled from the
fascines; but the besiegers were victorious, and the