ric Henry, a mere
boy, on whom the hopes of the Orange-Nassau house would rest if Maurice
fell in the conflict, should be spared the fate which seemed hanging over
the commonwealth and her defenders. But the son of William the Silent
implored his brother with clasped hands not to send him from his side at
that moment, so that Maurice granted his prayer, and caused him to be
provided with a complete suit of armour. Thus in company with young
Coligny--a lad of his own age, and like himself a grandson of the great
admiral--the youth who was one day to play so noble a part on the stage
of the world's affairs was now to be engaged in his first great passage
of arms. No one left the field but Sir Robert Sidney, who had come over
from Ostend, from irrepressible curiosity to witness the arrangements,
but who would obviously have been guilty of unpardonable negligence had
he been absent at such a crisis from the important post of which he was
governor for the queen.

The arena of the conflict seemed elaborately prepared by the hand of
nature. The hard, level, sandy beach, swept clean and smooth by the
ceaseless action of the tides, stretched out far as the eye could reach
in one long, bold, monotonous line. Like the whole coast of Flanders and
of Holland, it seemed drawn by a geometrical rule, not a cape, cove, or
estuary breaking the perfect straightness of the design. On the right,
just beyond high-water mark, the downs, fantastically heaped together
like a mimic mountain chain, or like tempestuous ocean-waves suddenly
changed to sand, rolled wild and confused, but still in a regularly
parallel course with the line of the beach. They seemed a barrier thrown
up to protect the land from being bitten quite away by the ever-restless
and encroaching sea. Beyond the downs, which were seven hundred yards in
width; extended a level tract of those green fertile meadows,
artificially drained, which are so characteristic a feature of the
Netherland landscapes, the stream which ran from Ostend towards the town
of Nieuport flowing sluggishly through them. It was a bright warm
midsummer day. The waves of the German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon
the crisp yellow sand, the surf breaking with its monotonous music at the
very feet of the armies. A gentle south-west breeze was blowing, just
filling the sails of more than a thousand ships in the offing, which
moved languidly along the sparkling sea. It was an atmosphere better
befitting a tra