regret with
which, as he believed, his imperial master had remembered the advice
received from him. At any rate the Duke now sent back Don Bernardino de
Mendoza, whom Don Frederic had despatched to Nimwegen, soliciting his
father's permission to raise the siege, with this reply: "Tell Don
Frederic," said Alva, "that if he be not decided to continue the siege
till the town be taken, I shall no longer consider him my son, whatever
my opinion may formerly have been. Should he fall in the siege, I will
myself take the field to maintain it, and when we have both perished, the
Duchess, my wife, shall come from Spain to do the same."

Such language was unequivocal, and hostilities were resumed as fiercely
as before. The besieged welcomed them with rapture, and, as usual, made
daily the most desperate sallies. In one outbreak the Harlemers, under
cover of a thick fog, marched up to the enemy's chief battery, and
attempted to spike the guns before his face. They were all slain at the
cannon's mouth, whither patriotism, not vainglory, had led them, and lay
dead around the battery, with their hammers and spikes in their hands.
The same spirit was daily manifested. As the spring advanced; the kine
went daily out of the gates to their peaceful pasture, notwithstanding,
all the turmoil within and around; nor was it possible for the Spaniards
to capture a single one of these creatures, without paying at least a
dozen soldiers as its price. "These citizens," wrote Don Frederic, "do as
much as the best soldiers in the world could do."

The frost broke up by the end of February. Count Bossu, who had been
building a fleet of small vessels in Amsterdam, soon afterwards succeeded
in entering the lake with a few gun-boats, through a breach which he had
made in the Overtoom, about half a league from that city. The possession
of the lake was already imperilled. The Prince, however, had not been
idle, and he, too, was soon ready to send his flotilla to the mere. At
the same time, the city of Amsterdam was in almost as hazardous a
position as Harlem. As the one on the lake, so did the other depend upon
its dyke for its supplies. Should that great artificial road which led to
Muyden and Utrecht be cut asunder, Amsterdam might be starved as soon as
Harlem. "Since I came into the world," wrote Alva, "I have never, been in
such anxiety. If they should succeed in cutting off the communication
along the dykes, we should have to raise the siege of Harl