not a soldier nor a naval commander by profession, but a
merchant-skipper, like so many other heroes whose achievements were to be
the permanent glory of their fatherland. He would not, however, have been
a Netherlander had he not learned something of the science which Prince
Maurice had so long been teaching, not only to his own countrymen but to
the whole world. So moveable turrets, constructed of the spice-trees
which grew in rank luxuriance all around, were filled with earth and
stones, and advanced towards the fort. Had the natives been as docile to
learn as the Hollanders were eager to teach a few easy lessons in the
military art, the doom of Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza would have been
sealed. But the great truths which those youthful pedants, Maurice and
Lewis William, had extracted twenty years before from the works of the
Emperor Leo and earlier pagans, amid the jeers of veterans, were not easy
to transplant to the Malayan peninsula.

It soon proved that those white-turbaned, loose-garmented, supple
jointed, highly-picturesque troops of the sultan were not likely to
distinguish themselves for anything but wonderful rapidity in retreat.
Not only did they shrink from any advance towards the distant forts, but
they were incapable of abiding an attack within or behind their towers,
and, at every random shot from the enemy's works, they threw down their
arms and fled from their stations in dismay. It was obvious enough that
the conquest and subjugation of such feeble warriors by the Portuguese
and Spaniards were hardly to be considered brilliant national trophies.
They had fallen an easy prey to the first European invader. They had no
discipline, no obedience, no courage; and Matelieff soon found that to
attempt a scientific siege with such auxiliaries against a
well-constructed stone fortress, garrisoned with three thousand troops,
under an experienced Spanish soldier, was but midsummer madness.

Fevers and horrible malaria, bred by the blazing sun of the equator out
of those pestilential jungles, poisoned the atmosphere. His handful of
troops, amounting to not much more than a hundred men to each of his
ships, might melt away before his eyes. Nevertheless, although it was
impossible for him to carry the place by regular approach, he would not
abandon the hope of reducing it by famine. During four months long,
accordingly, he kept every avenue by land or sea securely invested. In
August, however, the Spanish vicero