ous proportions, their currents flowing for the time with the vigour
of their far away youth.

Maurice had confided the defence of the Waal to Warner Du Bois, under
whose orders he placed a force of about seven thousand men, and whose
business it was to prevent Bucquoy's passage. His own task was to baffle
Spinola.

Bucquoy's ambition was to cross the Waal at a point as near as possible
to the fork of that stream with the true Rhine, seize the important city
of Nymegen, and then give the hand to Spinola, so soon as he should be on
the other side of the Yssel. At the village of Spardorp or Kekerdom, he
employed Pompeio Giustiniani to make a desperate effort, having secured a
large number of barges in which he embarked his troops. As the boatmen
neared the opposite bank, however, they perceived that Warner Du Bois had
made effective preparations for their reception. They lost heart, and, on
pretence that the current of the river was too rapid to allow them to
reach the point proposed for their landing, gradually dropped down the
stream, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the commanders, pushed
their way back to the shore which they had left. From that time forth,
the States' troops, in efficient numbers, fringed the inner side of the
Waal, along the whole length of the Batavian island, while armed vessels
of the republic patrolled the stream itself. In vain Count Bucquoy
watched an opportunity, either by surprise or by main strength, to effect
a crossing. The Waal remained as impassable as if it were a dividing
ocean.

On the other side of the quadrilateral, Maurice's dispositions were as
effective as those of his lieutenant on the Waal. The left shore of the
Yssel, along its whole length, from Arnhem and Doesburg quite up to Zwoll
and Campen, where the river empties itself into the Zuyder Zee, was now
sprinkled thickly with forts, hastily thrown up, but strong enough to
serve the temporary purpose of the stadholder. In vain the fleet-footed
and audacious Spinola moved stealthily or fiercely to and fro, from one
point to another, seeking an opening through which to creep, or a weak
spot where he might dash himself against the chain. The whole line was
securely guarded. The swollen river, the redoubts, and the musketeers of
Maurice, protected the heart of the republic from the impending danger.

Wearied of this fruitless pacing up and down, Spinola, while apparently
intending an assault upon Deventer, and thus attrac