combined force, however, was but a slender one; there being but sixteen hundred men to protect two miles and a half of rampart, besides the forts and ravelins.

But, such as it was, no time was lost in vain regrets. The sorties against the besiegers were incessant and brilliant. On one occasion Sir Francis Vere—conspicuous in the throng, in his red mantilla, and supported only by one hundred Englishmen and Dutchmen, under Captain Baskerville—held at bay eight companies of the famous Spanish legion called the Terzo Veijo, at push of pike, took many prisoners, and forced the Spaniards from the position in which they were entrenching themselves. On the other hand, Farnese declared that he had never in his life witnessed anything so unflinching as the courage of his troops; employed as they were in digging trenches where the soil was neither land nor water, exposed to inundation by the suddenly-opened sluices, to a plunging fire from the forts, and to perpetual hand-to-hand combats with an active and fearless foe, and yet pumping away in the coffer-dams-which they had invented by way of obtaining a standing-ground for their operations—as steadily and sedately as if engaged in purely pacific employments. The besieged here inspired by a courage equally remarkable. The regular garrison was small enough, but the burghers were courageous, and even the women organized themselves into a band of pioneers. This corps of Amazons, led by two female captains, rejoicing in the names of 'May in the Heart' and 'Catherine the Rose,' actually constructed an important redoubt between the citadel and the rampart, which received, in compliment to its builders, the appellation of 'Fort Venus.'

The demands of the beleaguered garrison, however, upon the States and upon Leicester were most pressing. Captain Hart swam thrice out of the city with letters to the States, to the governor-general, and to Queen Elizabeth; and the same perilous feat was performed several times by a Netherland officer. The besieged meant to sell their lives dearly, but it was obviously impossible for them, with so slender a force, to resist a very long time.

"Our ground is great and our men not so many," wrote Roger Williams to his sovereign, "but we trust in God and our valour to defend it . . . . . . . We mean, with God's help, to make their downs red and black, and to let out every acre of our ground for a thousand of their lives, besides our own."

The Welshman was no braggart, and had proved often enough that he was more given to performances than promises. "We doubt not your Majesty will succour us," he said, "for our honest mind and plain dealing toward your royal person and dear country;" adding, as a bit of timely advice, "Royal Majesty, believe not over much your peacemakers. Had they their mind, they will not only undo your friend's abroad, but, in the end, your royal estate."

Certainly it was from no want of wholesome warning from wise statesmen and blunt soldiers that the Queen was venturing into that labyrinth of negotiation which might prove so treacherous. Never had been so inopportune a moment for that princess to listen to the voice of him who was charming her so wisely, while he was at the same moment battering the place, which was to be the basis of his operations against her realm. Her delay in sending forth Leicester, with at least a moderate contingent, to the rescue, was most pernicious. The States—ignorant of the Queen's exact relations with Spain, and exaggerating her disingenuousness into absolute perfidy became on their own part exceedingly to blame. There is no doubt whatever that both Hollanders and English men were playing into the hands of Parma as adroitly as if he had actually directed their movements. Deep were the denunciations of Leicester and his partisans by the States' party, and incessant the complaints of the English and Dutch troops shut up in Sluys against the inactivity or treachery of Maurice and Hohenlo.

"If Count Maurice and his base brother, the Admiral (Justinus de Nassau), be too young to govern, must Holland and Zeeland lose their countries and towns to make them expert men of war?" asked Roger Williams.' A pregnant question certainly, but the answer was, that by suspicion and jealousy, rather than by youth and inexperience, the arms were paralyzed which should have saved the garrison. "If these base fellows (the States) will make Count Hollock their instrument," continued the Welshman; "to cover and maintain their folly and lewd dealing, is it necessary for her royal Majesty 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 additional vantage-point for coercing the country into subjection to his arbitrary authority. Perhaps it would be transferred to Philip by Elizabeth as part of the price for peace. There was a growing feeling in Holland and Zeeland that as those Provinces bore all the expense of the war, it was an imperative necessity that they should limit their operations to the defence of their own soil. The suspicions as to the policy of the English government were sapping the very foundations of the alliance, and there was small disposition on the part of the Hollanders, therefore, to protect what remained of Flanders, and thus to strengthen the hands of her whom they were beginning to look upon as an enemy.

Maurice and Hohenlo made, however, a foray into Brabant, by way of diversion to the siege of Sluys, and thus compelled Farnese to detach a considerable force under Haultepenne into that country, and