d, had been frozen up in the
neighbourhood of Amsterdam. Don Frederic on his arrival from Naarden,
despatched a body of picked men over the ice to attack the imprisoned
vessels. The crews had, however, fortified themselves by digging a wide
trench around the whole fleet, which thus became from the moment an
almost impregnable fortress. Out of this frozen citadel a strong band of
well-armed and skilful musketeers sallied forth upon skates as the
besieging force advanced. A rapid, brilliant, and slippery skirmish
succeeded, in which the Hollanders, so accustomed to such sports, easily
vanquished their antagonists, and drove them off the field, with the loss
of several hundred left dead upon the ice.

"'T was a thing never heard of before to-day," said Alva, "to see a body
of arquebusiers thus skirmishing upon a frozen sea." In the course of the
next four-and-twenty hours a flood and a rapid thaw released the vessels,
which all escaped to Enkhuyzen, while a frost, immediately and strangely
succeeding, made pursuit impossible.

The Spaniards were astonished at these novel manoeuvres upon the ice. It
is amusing to read their elaborate descriptions of the wonderful
appendages which had enabled the Hollanders to glide so glibly into
battle with a superior force, and so rapidly to glance away, after
achieving a signal triumph. Nevertheless, the Spaniards could never be
dismayed, and were always apt scholars, even if an enemy were the
teacher. Alva immediately ordered seven thousand pairs of skates, and his
soldiers soon learned to perform military evolutions with these new
accoutrements as audaciously, if not as adroitly, as the Hollanders.

A portion of the Harlem magistracy, notwithstanding the spirit which
pervaded the province, began to tremble as danger approached. They were
base enough to enter into secret negotiations with Alva, and to send
three of their own number to treat with the Duke at Amsterdam. One was
wise enough to remain with the enemy. The other two were arrested on
their return, and condemned, after an impartial trial, to death. For,
while these emissaries of a cowardly magistracy were absent, the stout
commandant of the little garrison, Ripperda, had assembled the citizens
and soldiers in the market-place. He warned them of the absolute
necessity to make a last effort for freedom. In startling colors he held
up to them the fate of Mechlin, of Zutphen, of Naarden, as a prophetic
mirror, in which they might