they had fought.

Owing to the wound of Prince Eugene, the Duke of Marlborough had to
direct the operations of the siege as well as to command the army
in the field. On the 23rd he followed up the advantage gained on
the 20th, by a fresh attack in two columns, each 5000 strong, and
headed by 500 English troops. After being three times repulsed,
these succeeded in maintaining a lodgment in another outwork;
losing, however, 1000 men in the attack, the greater part being
destroyed by the explosion of a mine.

Both besiegers and besieged were now becoming straitened for
ammunition, for the consumption had been immense. The French
generals succeeded in passing a supply into the fortress in a very
daring manner.

On the night of the 28th, 2500 horsemen set out from Douai, under
the command of the Chevalier de Luxembourg, each having forty
pounds of powder in his valise. They arrived at the gate of the
walls of circumvallation, when the Dutch sentry cried out:

"Who comes there?"

"Open quickly!" the leader answered in the same language; "I am
closely pursued by the French."

The sentry opened the gate, and the horsemen began to pass in.
Eighteen hundred had passed without suspicion being excited, when
one of the officers, seeing that his men were not keeping close up,
gave the command in French:

"Close up! close up!"

The captain of the guard caught the words, and suspecting
something, ordered the party to halt; and then, as they still rode
in, ordered the guard to fire. The discharge set fire to three of
the powder bags, and the explosion spreading from one to another,
sixty men and horses were killed. The portion of the troops still
outside the gate fled, but the 800 who had passed in rode forward
through the allied camp and entered the town in safety, with 70,000
pounds of powder!

Another deed of gallantry, equal to anything ever told in fiction,
was performed by a Captain Dubois of the French army. It was a
matter of the highest importance for the French generals to learn
the exact state of things at Lille. Captain Dubois volunteered to
enter the fortress by water. He accordingly left the French camp,
and swimming through seven canals, entered the Dyle near the place
where it entered the besiegers' lines. He then dived, and aided by
the current, swam under water for an incredibly long distance, so
as entirely to elude the observation of the sentinels. He arrived
in safety in the town, exhausted with his g