Again they were more warmly pressed; again their messenger returned with the same reply.  A third time they send the most urgent entreaties for succour.  The Duke was still inexorable.

Meantime the result of this scientific angling approached.  By noon the rebels, not being able to see how large a portion of the Spanish army had arrived, began to think the affair not so serious.  Count Louis sent out a reconnoitring party upon the river in a few boats.  They returned without having been able to discover any large force.  It seemed probable, therefore, that the inundation had been more successful in stopping their advance than had been supposed.  Louis, always too rash, inflamed his men with temporary enthusiasm.  Determined to cut their way out by one vigorous movement, the whole army at last marched forth from their entrenchments, with drums beating, colors flying; but already the concealed reinforcements of their enemies were on the spot.  The patriots met with a warmer reception than they had expected.  Their courage evaporated.  Hardly had they advanced three hundred yards, when the whole body wavered and then retreated precipitately towards the encampment, having scarcely exchanged a shot with the enemy.  Count Louis, in a frenzy of rage and despair, flew from rank to rank, in vain endeavouring to rally his terror-stricken troops.  It was hopeless.  The battery which guarded the road was entirely deserted.  He rushed to the cannon himself, and fired them all with his own hand.  It was their first and last discharge.  His single arm, however bold, could not turn the tide of battle, and he was swept backwards with his coward troops.  In a moment afterwards, Don Lope de Figueroa, who led the van of the Spaniards, dashed upon the battery, and secured it, together with the ravelins.  Their own artillery was turned against the rebels, and the road was soon swept.  The Spaniards in large numbers now rushed through the trenches in pursuit of the retreating foe.  No resistance was offered, nor quarter given.  An impossible escape was all which was attempted.  It was not a battle, but a massacre.  Many of the beggars in their flight threw down their arms; all had forgotten their use.  Their antagonists butchered them in droves, while those who escaped the sword were hurled into the river.  Seven Spaniards were killed, and seven thousand rebels.

[Letter of Alva to the Council of State.  Correspondanee du Duc d’Albe, 158.  The same letter is published in Igor, iv. 245, 246.  All writers allow seven thousand to have been killed on the patriot side, and—­the number of Spaniards slain is not estimated at more than eighty, even by the patriotic Meteren, 55.  Compare Bor, iv. 245-246; Herrera, av. 696; Hoofd, v, 176, and Mendoza, 72.]

The swift ebb-tide swept the hats of the perishing wretches in such numbers down the stream, that the people at Embden knew the result of the battle in an incredibly short period of time.  The skirmishing