th his invincible sword. Orders
were given accordingly, and the assault was assigned for the following
morning.

Meantime, the guards were strengthened and commanded to be more than
usually watchful. The injunction had a remarkable effect. At the dead of
night, a soldier of the watch was going his rounds on the outside of the
breastwork, listening, if perchance he might catch, as was not unusual, a
portion of the conversation among the beleaguered burghers within. Prying
about on every side, he at last discovered a chink in the wall, the
result, doubtless, of the last cannonade, and hitherto overlooked. He
enlarged the gap with his fingers, and finally made an opening wide
enough to admit his person. He crept boldly through, and looked around in
the clear starlight. The sentinels were all slumbering at their posts. He
advanced stealthily in the dusky streets. Not a watchman was going his
rounds. Soldiers, burghers, children, women, exhausted by incessant
fatigue, were all asleep. Not a footfall was heard; not a whisper broke
the silence; it seemed a city of the dead. The soldier crept back through
the crevice, and hastened to apprise his superiors of his adventure.

Alexander, forthwith instructed as to the condition of the city, at once
ordered the assault, and the last wall was suddenly stormed before the
morning broke. The soldiers forced their way through the breach or sprang
over the breastwork, and surprised at last--in its sleep--the city which
had so long and vigorously defended itself. The burghers, startled from
their slumber, bewildered, unprepared, found themselves engaged in
unequal conflict with alert and savage foes. The battle, as usual when
Netherland towns were surprised by Philip's soldiers, soon changed to a
massacre. The townspeople rushed hither and thither, but there was
neither escape, nor means of resisting an enemy who now poured into the
town by thousands upon thousands. An indiscriminate slaughter succeeded:
Women, old men, and children, had all been combatants; and all,
therefore, had incurred the vengeance of the conquerors. A cry of agony
arose which was distinctly heard at the distance of a league. Mothers
took their infants in their arms, and threw themselves by hundreds into
the Meuse--and against women the blood-thirst of the assailants was
especially directed. Females who had fought daily in the trenches, who
had delved in mines and mustered on the battlements, had unsexed
themselves