y up to the town where they soon dropped anchor at the
wharf of the inner Gullet, having only a couple of sailors wounded,
despite all the furious discharges of Bucquoy's batteries. The holiday
makers dispersed, much discomfited, the English hostages returned to the
town, and the archduke shut himself up, growling and furious. His
generals and counsellors, who had recommended the abandonment of his
carefully prepared assault, and acceptance of the perfidious propositions
to negotiate, by which so much golden time had been squandered, were for
several days excluded from his presence.

Meantime the army, disappointed, discontented, half-starved, unpaid,
passed their days and nights as before, in the sloppy trenches, while
deep and earnest were the complaints and the curses which succeeded to
the momentary exultation of Christmas eve. The soldiers were more than
ever embittered against their august commander-in-chief, for they had
just enjoyed a signal opportunity of comparing the luxury and comfortable
magnificence of his Highness and the Infanta, and of contrasting it with
their own misery. Moreover, it had long been exciting much indignation in
the ranks that veteran generals and colonels, in whom all men had
confidence, had been in great numbers superseded in order to make place
for court favourites, utterly without experience or talent. Thus the
veterans; murmuring in the wet trenches. The archduke meanwhile, in his
sullen retirement, brooded over a tragedy to follow the very successful
comedy of his antagonist.

It was not long delayed. The assault which had been postponed in the
latter days of December was to be renewed before the end of the first
week of the new year. Vere, through scouts and deserters, was aware of
the impending storm, and had made his arrangements in accordance with,
the very minute information which he had thus received. The
reinforcements, so opportunely sent by the States, were not
numerous--only six hundred in all--but they were an earnest of fresh
comrades to follow. Meantime they sufficed to fill the gaps in the ranks,
and to enable Vere to keep possession of the external line of
fortifications, including the all-important Porcupine. Moreover, during
the fictitious negotiations, while the general had thus been holding--as
he expressed it--the wolf by both ears, the labor of repairing damages in
dyke, moat, and wall had not been for an instant neglected.

The morning of the 7th January, 16