ate was opened, and the assailants such as still
survived--panic-struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old
harbour towards their camp. It was too late. The waters were out, and the
contending currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the
submerged land, and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them
were miserably drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.
Horses and riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several
of their corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of
Flushing.

Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and
the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that
they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of
being butchered. Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given. Count
Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his
ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood,
or doubted his solvency. Durango, marshal of the camp, Don
Alvarez de Suarez, and Don Matteo Antonio, sergeant-major and
quarter-master-general, whose adventures as a hostage within the town
on Christmas eve have so recently been related, were also slain.

On the eastern side Bucquoy's attack was an entire failure. His
arrangements were too slowly made, and before he could bring his men to
the assault the water was so high in the Gullet that they refused to lay
their pontoons and march to certain death. Only at lowest ebb, and with
most exquisite skill in fording, would it have been possible to effect
anything like an earnest demonstration or a surprise. Moreover some of
the garrison, giving themselves out as deserters, stole out of the
Spanish Half-moon, which had been purposely almost denuded of its
defenders, towards the enemy's entrenchments, and offered to lead a body
of Spaniards into that ravelin. Bucquoy fell into the trap, so that the
detachment, after a victory as easily effected as that in the southern
forts, found themselves when the fight was over not the captors but the
caught. A few attempted to escape and were driven into the sea; the rest
were massacred.

Fifteen hundred of the enemy's dead were counted and registered by
Auditor Fleming. The whole number of the slain and drowned was reckoned
as high as two thousand, which was at least, a quarter of the whole
besieging army. And so ended this winter night's assault, by which the