midable
obstacle even after the counterscarp should be gained. There were nearly
fifty forts and redoubts in these lines, of sufficient importance to have
names which in those days became household words, not only in the
Netherlands, but in Europe; the siege of Ostend being the one military
event of Christendom, so long as it lasted. These names are of course as
much forgotten now as those of the bastions before Nineveh. A very few of
them will suffice to indicate the general aspect of the operations. On
the extreme southwest of Ostend had been in peaceful times a polder--the
general term to designate a pasture out of which the sea-water had been
pumped--and the forts in that quarter were accordingly called by that
name, as Polder Half-moon, Polder Ravelin, or great and little Polder
Bulwark, as the case might be. Farther on towards the west, the
north-west, and the north, and therefore towards the beach, were the West
Ravelin, West Bulwark, Moses's Table, the Porcupine, the Hell's Mouth,
the old church, and last and most important of all, the Sand Hill. The
last-named work was protected by the Porcupine and Hell's Mouth, was the
key to the whole series of fortifications, and was connected by a curtain
with the old church, which was in the heart of the old town.

Spinola had assumed command in October, but the winter was already
closing in with its usual tempests and floods before there had been time
for him to produce much effect. It seemed plain enough to the besieged
that the object of the enemy would be to work his way through the Polder,
and so gradually round to the Porcupine and the Sand Hill. Precisely in
what directions his subterraneous passages might be tending, in what
particular spot of the thin crust upon which they all stood an explosion
might at any moment be expected, it was of course impossible to know.
They were sure that the process of mining was steadily progressing, and
Maurice sent orders to countermine under every bulwark, and to secretly
isolate every bastion, so that it would be necessary for Spinola to make
his way, fort by fort, and inch by inch.

Thus they struggled drearily about under ground, friend and foe, often as
much bewildered as wanderers in the catacombs. To a dismal winter
succeeded a ferocious spring. Both in February and March were westerly
storms, such as had not been recorded even on that tempest-swept coast
for twenty years, and so much damage was inflicted on the precious Sa