02, opened with a vigorous cannonade
from all the archduke's batteries, east, west, and south. Auditor
Fleeting, counsellor and secretary of the city, aide-de-camp and right
hand of the commander-in-chief, a grim, grizzled, leathern-faced man of
fifty, steady under fire as a veteran arquebuseer, ready with his pen as
a counting-house clerk, and as fertile in resource as the most
experienced campaigner, was ever at the general's side. At his suggestion
several houses had been demolished, to furnish materials in wood and iron
to stop the gaps as soon as made. Especially about the Sand Hill fort and
the Porcupine a plentiful supply was collected, no time having been lost
in throwing up stockades, palisades, and every other possible obstruction
to the expected assailants. Knowing perfectly well where the brunt of the
battle was to be, Vere had placed his brother Sir Horace at the head of
twelve picked companies of diverse nations in the Sand Hill. Four of the
very best companies of the garrison were stationed in the Porcupine, and
ten more of the choicest in Fort Hell's Mouth, under Colonel Meetkerke.
It must be recollected that the first of these three works was the key to
the fortifications of the old or outer town. The other two were very near
it, and were the principal redoubts which defended the most exposed and
vulnerable portion of the new town on the western side. The Sand Hill, as
its name imported, was the only existing relic within the city's verge of
the chain of downs once encircling the whole place. It had however been
cannonaded so steadily during the six months' siege as to have become
almost ironclad--a mass of metal gradually accumulating from the enemy's
guns. With the curtain extending from it towards east and west it
protected the old town quite up to the little ancient brick church, one
of the only two in Ostend.

All day long the cannon thundered--a bombardment such as had never before
been dreamed of in those days, two thousand shots having been distinctly
counted, by the burghers. There was but languid response from the
besieged, who were reserving their strength. At last, to the brief
winter's day succeeded a pitch-dark evening. It was dead low tide at
seven. At that hour the drums suddenly beat alarm along the whole line of
fortifications from the Gullet on the east to the old harbour on the
west, while through the mirky atmosphere sounded the trumpets of the
assault, the shouts of the Spanish and