ht. But they had reckoned
without their wily English host. As they came nearer--van, and at last
reserve--they dropped in great heaps under the steady fire of the
musketry--as Philip Flaming, looking on, exclaimed--like apples when the
autumn wind blows through the orchard. And as the foremost still pressed
nearer and nearer, striving to clamber up the shattered counterscarp and
through every practicable breach, the English, Hollanders, and
Zeelanders, met them in the gap, not only at push of pike, but with their
long daggers and with flaming pitchhoops, and hurled them down to instant
death.

And thus around the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell's Mouth, the
battle raged nearly two hours long, without an inch of ground being
gained by the assailants. The dead and dying were piled beneath the
walls, while still the reserves, goaded up to the mark by the cavalry,
mounted upon the bodies of their fallen comrades and strove to plant
their, ladders. But now the tide was on the flood, the harbour was
filling, and cool Auditor Fleming, whom nothing escaped quietly asked the
general's permission to open the western' sluice. It was obvious, he
observed, that the fury of the attack was over, and that the enemy would
soon be effecting a retreat before the water should have risen too high.
He even pointed out many stragglers attempting to escape through the
already deepening shallows. Vere's consent was at once given, the
flood-gate was opened, and the assailants such as still
survived--panic-struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old
harbour towards their camp. It was too late. The waters were out, and the
contending currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the
submerged land, and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them
were miserably drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.
Horses and riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several
of their corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of
Flushing.

Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and
the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that
they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of
being butchered. Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given. Count
Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his
ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood,
or doubted his solvency. Du