the approaching
relief.

While the conquerors were thus gone to enjoy their triumph, the
conquered, though perplexed and silenced, were not yet disposed to accept
their defeat. They were even ignorant that they were conquered. They had
been forced to abandon the field, and the patriots had entrenched
themselves upon the dyke, but neither Fort Saint George nor the Palisade
had been carried, although the latter was in imminent danger.

Old Count Peter Ernest Mansfeld--a grizzled veteran, who had passed his
childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, under fire--commanded at the
land-end of the dyke, in the fortress of Stabroek, in which neighbourhood
his whole division was stationed. Seeing how the day was going, he called
a council of war. The patriots had gained a large section of the dyke. So
much was certain. Could they succeed in utterly demolishing that bulwark
in the course of the day? If so, how were they to be dislodged before
their work was perfected? It was difficult to assault their position.
Three thousand Hollanders, Antwerpers, Englishmen--"mad bulldogs all," as
Parma called them--showing their teeth very mischievously, with one
hundred and sixty Zeeland vessels throwing in their broadsides from both
margins of the dyke, were a formidable company to face.

"Oh for one half hour of Alexander in the field!" sighed one of the
Spanish officers in council. But Alexander was more than four leagues
away, and it was doubtful whether he even knew of the fatal occurrence.
Yet how to send him a messenger. Who could reach him through that valley
of death? Would it not be better to wait till nightfall? Under the cover
of darkness something might be attempted, which in the daylight would be
hopeless. There was much anxiety, and much difference of opinion had been
expressed, when Camillo Capizucca, colonel of the Italian Legion,
obtained a hearing. A man bold in words as in deeds, he vehemently
denounced the pusillanimity which would wait either for Parma or for
nightfall. "What difference will it make," he asked, "whether we defer
our action until either darkness or the General arrives? In each case we
give the enemy time enough to destroy the dyke, and thoroughly to relieve
the city. That done, what good can be accomplished by our arms? Then our
disheartened soldiers will either shrink from a fruitless combat or march
to certain death." Having thus, very warmly but very sagaciously, defined
the position in which all were