ately back to their camp. The panic spread
with them, and the whole army was soon in retreat. On retiring, they had,
however, set fire to the bridges, and thus secured an advantage at the
outset of the chase. The Spaniards were no longer to be held. Vitelli
obtained permission to follow with 2000 additional troops. The fifteen
hundred who had already been engaged, charged furiously upon their
retreating foes. Some dashed across the blazing bridges, with their
garments and their very beards on fire. Others sprang into the river.
Neither fire nor water could check the fierce pursuit. The cavalry
dismounting, drove their horses into the stream, and clinging to their
tails, pricked the horses forward with their lances. Having thus been
dragged across, they joined their comrades in the mad chase along the
narrow dykes, and through the swampy and almost impassable country where
the rebels were seeking shelter. The approach of night, too soon
advancing, at last put an end to the hunt. The Duke with difficulty
recalled his men, and compelled them to restrain their eagerness until
the morrow. Three hundred of the patriots were left dead upon the field,
besides at least an equal number who perished in the river and canals.
The army of Louis was entirely routed, and the Duke considered it
virtually destroyed. He wrote to the state council that he should pursue
them the next day, but doubted whether he should find anybody to talk
with him. In this the Governor-general soon found himself delightfully
disappointed.

Five days later, the Duke arrived at Reyden, on the Ems. Owing to the
unfavorable disposition of the country people, who were willing to
protect the fugitives by false information to their pursuers, he was
still in doubt as to the position then occupied by the enemy. He had been
fearful that they would be found at this very village of Reyden. It was a
fatal error on the part of Count Louis that they were not. Had he made a
stand at this point, he might have held out a long time. The bridge which
here crossed the river would have afforded him a retreat into Germany at
any moment, and the place was easily to be defended in front. Thus he
might have maintained himself against his fierce but wary foe, while his
brother Orange, who was at Strasburg watching the progress of events, was
executing his own long-planned expedition into the heart of the
Netherlands. With Alva thus occupied in Friesland, the results of such an
invasi