gratulating
themselves on their victory when suddenly the ubiquitous Philip Fleeting
plunged, with a face of horror, into the governor's quarters, informing
him that the attack on the redoubt had been a feint, and that the
Spaniards were at that very moment swarming all over the three external
forts, called the South Square, the West Square, and the Polder. These
points, which have been already described, were most essential to the
protection of the place, as without them the whole counterscarp was in
danger. It was to save those exposed but vital positions that Sir Francis
Vere had resorted to the slippery device of the last Christmas Eve but
one.

Dorp refused to believe the intelligence. The squares were well guarded,
the garrison ever alert. Spaniards were not birds of prey to fly up those
perpendicular heights, and for beings without wings the thing was
impossible. He followed Fleming through the darkness, and was soon
convinced that the impossible was true. The precious squares were in the
hands of the enemy. Nimble as monkeys, those yellow jerkined Italians,
Walloons, and Spaniards--stormhats on their heads and swords in their
teeth--had planted rope-ladders, swung themselves up the walls by
hundreds upon hundreds, while the fight had been going on at the
Porcupine, and were now rushing through the forts grinning defiance,
yelling and chattering with fierce triumph, and beating down all
opposition. It was splendidly done. The discomfited Dorp met small bodies
of his men, panic-struck, reeling out from their stronghold, wounded,
bleeding, shrieking for help and for orders. It seemed as if the
Spaniards had dropped from the clouds. The Dutch commandant did his best
to rally the fugitives, and to encourage those who had remained. All
night long the furious battle raged, every inch of ground being
contested; for both Catholics and Hollanders knew full well that this
triumph was worth more than all that had been gained for the archduke in
eighteen months of siege. Pike to pike, breast to breast, they fought
through the dark April night; the last sobs of the hurricane dying
unheard, the red lanterns flitting to and fro, the fireworks hissing in
every direction of earth and air, the great wicker piles, heaped up with
pitch and rosin, flaming over a scene more like a dance of goblins than a
commonplace Christian massacre. At least fifteen hundred were
killed--besiegers and besieged--during the storming of the forts and t