in the opinion of those whose comrades they had helped to
destroy. It was nothing that they had laid aside the weakness of women in
order to defend all that was holy and dear to them on earth. It was
sufficient that many a Spanish, Burgundian, or Italian mercenary had died
by their hands. Women were pursued from house to house, and hurled from
roof and window. They were hunted into the river; they were torn limb
from limb in the streets. Men and children fared no better; but the heart
sickens at the oft-repeated tale. Horrors, alas, were commonplaces in the
Netherlands. Cruelty too monstrous for description, too vast to be
believed by a mind not familiar with the outrages practised by the
soldiers of Spain and Italy upon their heretic fellow-creatures, were now
committed afresh in the streets of Maestricht.

On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered. The
massacre lasted two days longer; nor would it be an exaggerated estimate,
if we assume that the amount of victims upon the two last days was equal
to half the number sacrificed on the first. It was said that not four
hundred citizens were left alive after the termination of the siege.
These soon wandered away, their places being supplied by a rabble rout of
Walloon sutlers and vagabonds. Maestricht was depopulated as well as
captured. The booty obtained after the massacre was very large, for the
city had been very thriving, its cloth manufacture extensive and
important. Sebastian Tappin, the heroic defender of the place, had been
shot through the shoulder at the taking of the Parma ravelin, and had
been afterwards severely injured at the capture of the demilune. At the
fall of the city he was mortally wounded, and carried a prisoner to the
hostile camp, only to expire. The governor, Swartsenberg, also lost his
life.

Alexander, on the contrary, was raised from his sick bed with the joyful
tidings of victory, and as soon as he could be moved, made his appearance
in the city. Seated in a splendid chair of state, borne aloft on the
shoulders of his veterans, with a golden canopy above his head to protect
him from the summer's sun, attended by the officers of his staff, who
were decked by his special command in, their gayest trappings, escorted
by his body-guard, followed by his "plumed troops," to the number of
twenty thousand, surrounded by all the vanities of war, the hero made his
stately entrance into the town. His way led through deserted streets