eadily at work, exposed all the time to the
guns of the Spanish half-moon from which the besieged never ceased to
cannonade those industrious pioneers. It was a bloody business. Night and
day the men were knee-deep in the trenches delving in mud and sand,
falling every instant into the graves which they were thus digging for
themselves, while ever and anon the sea would rise in its wrath and sweep
them with their works away. Yet the victims were soon replaced by others,
for had not the cardinal-archduke sworn to extract the thorn from the
Belgic lion's paw even if he should be eighteen years about it, and would
military honour permit him to break his vow? It was a piteous sight, even
for the besieged, to see human life so profusely squandered. It is a
terrible reflection, too, that those Spaniards, Walloons, Italians,
confronted death so eagerly, not from motives of honour, religion,
discipline, not inspired by any kind of faith or fanaticism, but because
the men who were employed in this horrible sausage-making and
dyke-building were promised five stivers a day instead of two.

And there was always an ample supply of volunteers for the service so
long as the five stivers were paid.

But despite all Bucquoy's exertions the east harbour remained as free as
ever. The cool, wary Dutch skippers brought in their cargoes as regularly
as if there had been no siege at all. Ostend was rapidly acquiring
greater commercial importance, and was more full of bustle and business
than had ever been dreamed of in that quiet nook since the days of Robert
the Frisian, who had built the old church of Ostend, as one of the thirty
which he erected in honour of St. Peter, five hundred years before.

For the States did not neglect their favourite little city. Fleets of
transports arrived day after day, week after week, laden with every
necessary and even luxury for the use of the garrison. It was perhaps the
cheapest place in all the Netherlands, so great was the abundance.
Capons, bares, partridges, and butcher's meat were plentiful as
blackberries, and good French claret was but two stivers the quart.
Certainly the prospect was not promising of starving the town into a
surrender.

But besides all this digging and draining there was an almost daily
cannonade. Her Royal Highness the Infanta was perpetually in camp by the
side of her well-beloved Albert, making her appearance there in great
state, with eighteen coaches full of ladies of hono