an honest man."

No one ever doubted the simple-hearted Welshman's honesty, any more than
his valour; but he confided in the candour of others who were somewhat
more sophisticated than himself. When he warned her, royal Majesty
against the peace-makers, it was impossible for him to know that the
great peace-maker was Elizabeth herself.

After the expiration of a month the work had become most fatiguing. The
enemy's trenches had been advanced close to the ramparts, and desperate
conflicts were of daily occurrence. The Spanish mines, too, had been
pushed forward towards the extensive wine-caverns below the city, and the
danger of a vast explosion or of a general assault from beneath their
very feet, seemed to the inhabitants imminent. Eight days long, with
scarcely an intermission, amid those sepulchral vaults, dimly-lighted
with torches, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Italians, fought hand to
hand, with pike, pistol, and dagger, within the bowels of the earth.

Meantime the operations of the States were not commendable. The
ineradicable jealousy between the Leicestrians and the Barneveldians had
done its work. There was no hearty effort for the relief of Sluys. There
were suspicions that, if saved, the town would only be taken possession
of by the Earl of Leicester, as an additional vantage-point for coercing
the country into subjection to his arbitrary authority. Perhaps it would
be transferred to Philip by Elizabeth as part of the price for peace.
There was a growing feeling in Holland and Zeeland that as those
Provinces bore all the expense of the war, it was an imperative necessity
that they should limit their operations to the defence of their own soil.
The suspicions as to the policy of the English government were sapping
the very foundations of the alliance, and there was small disposition on
the part of the Hollanders, therefore, to protect what remained of
Flanders, and thus to strengthen the hands of her whom they were
beginning to look upon as an enemy.

Maurice and Hohenlo made, however, a foray into Brabant, by way of
diversion to the siege of Sluys, and thus compelled Farnese to detach a
considerable force under Haultepenne into that country, and thereby to
weaken himself. The expedition of Maurice was not unsuccessful. There was
some sharp skirmishing between Hohenlo and Haultepenne, in which the
latter, one of the most valuable and distinguished generals on the royal
side, was defeated and slain; the