n the rest of his troops who had remained outside the
walls. The prize of the wealthy city of Bois-le-Duc was too tempting to
be lightly abandoned; but he had much better have thought of making
himself master of it himself before he should present it as a prey to his
followers.

During his absence the panic spread. The States' troops, bewildered,
astonished, vigorously assaulted, turned their backs upon their enemies,
and fled helter-skelter towards the gates, through which they had first
gained admittance. But unfortunately for them, so soon as the corporal
had left his position, the wounded old gate-opener, in a dying condition,
had crawled forth on his hands and knees from a dark hole in the tower,
cut, with a pocket-knife, the ropes of the portcullis, and then given up
the ghost. Most effective was that blow struck by a dead man's hand. Down
came the portcullis. The flying plunderers were entrapped. Close behind
them came the excited burghers--their antique Belgic ferocity now fully
aroused--firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with
bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed
in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate
patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some
were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw
themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very
few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau sprang over the parapet,
and succeeded in swimming the ditch. Kleerhagen, driven into the Holy
Cross tower, ascended to its roof, leaped, all accoutred as he was, into
the river, and with the assistance of a Scotch soldier, came safe to
land. Ferdinand Truchsess, brother of the ex-elector of Cologne, was
killed. Four or five hundred of the assailants--nearly all who had
entered the city--were slain, and about fifty of the burghers.

Hohenlo soon came back, with Colonel Ysselstein, and two thousand fresh
troops. But their noses, says a contemporary, grew a hundred feet long
with surprise when they saw the gate shut in their faces. It might have
occurred to the Count, when he rushed out of the town for reinforcements,
that it would be as well to replace the guard, which--as he must have
seen--had abandoned their post.

Cursing his folly, he returned, mavellously discomfited, and deservedly
censured, to Gertruydenberg. And thus had a most important enterprise;
which ha