in that fatal letter Y
advanced slowly under ground, stretching its deadly prongs nearer and
nearer up to the walls; and again the system of defences against a
relieving force was so perfectly established that Verdugo or Mansfield,
with what troops they could muster, seemed as powerless as the pewter
soldiers with which Maurice in his boyhood--not yet so long passed
away--was wont to puzzle over the problems which now practically engaged
his early manhood. Again, too, strangely enough, it is recorded that
Philip Nassau, at almost the same period of the siege as in that of
Gertruydenberg, signalized himself by a deed of drunken and superfluous
daring. This time the dinner party was at the quarters of Count Solms, in
honour of the Prince of Anhalt, where, after potations pottle deep, Count
Philip rushed from the dinner-table to the breach, not yet thoroughly
practicable, of the north ravelin, and, entirely without armour, mounted
pike in hand to the assault, proposing to carry the fort by his own
unaided exertions. Another officer, one Captain Vaillant, still more
beside himself than was the count, inspired him to these deeds of valour
by assuring him that the mine was to be sprung under the ravelin that
afternoon, and that it was a plot on the part of the Holland boatmen to
prevent the soldiers who had been working so hard and so long in the
mines from taking part in the honours of the assault. The count was with
difficulty brought off with a whole skin and put to bed. Yet despite
these disgraceful pranks there is no doubt that a better and braver
officer than he was hardly to be found even among the ten noble Nassaus
who at that moment were fighting for the cause of Dutch
liberty--fortunately with more sobriety than he at all times displayed.
On the following day, Prince Maurice, making a reconnoissance of the
works with his usual calmness, yet with the habitual contempt of personal
danger which made so singular a contrast with the cautious and
painstaking characteristics of his strategy, very narrowly escaped death.
A shot from the fort struck so hard upon the buckler under cover of which
he was taking his observations as to fell him to the ground. Sir Francis
Vere, who was with the prince under the same buckler, likewise measured
his length in the trench, but both escaped serious injury.

Pauli, one of the States commissioners present in the camp, wrote to
Barneveld that it was to be hoped that the accident might prove