esty to suffer it? These are too great matters to be rehearsed by me;
but because I am in the town, and do resolve to, sign with my blood my
duty in serving my sovereign and country, I trust her Majesty will pardon
me." Certainly the gallant adventurer on whom devolved at least half the
work of directing the defence of the city, had a right to express his
opinions. Had he known the whole truth, however, those opinions would
have been modified. And he wrote amid the smoke and turmoil of daily and
nightly battle.

"Yesterday was the fifth sally we made," he observed: "Since I followed
the wars I never saw valianter captains, nor willinger soldiers. At
eleven o'clock the enemy entered the ditch of our fort, with trenches
upon wheels, artillery-proof. We sallied out, recovered their trenches,
slew the governor of Dam, two Spanish captains, with a number of others,
repulsed them into their artillery, kept the ditch until yesternight, and
will recover it, with God's help, this night, or else pay dearly for it.
. . . I care not what may become of me in this world, so that her
Majesty's honour,--with the rest of honourable good friends, will think
me 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 addit