The great bell was tolled, and orders were issued that all arms in the possession of the garrison or the inhabitants should be brought to the town-house.  The men were then ordered to assemble in the cloister of Zyl, the women in the cathedral.  On the same day, Don Frederic, accompanied by Count Bossu and a numerous staff, rode into the city.  The scene which met his view might have moved a heart of stone.  Everywhere was evidence of the misery which had been so bravely endured during that seven months’ siege.  The smouldering ruins of houses, which had been set on fire by balls, the shattered fortifications, the felled trunks of trees, upturned pavements, broken images and other materials for repairing gaps made by the daily cannonade, strewn around in all directions, the skeletons of unclean animals from which the flesh had been gnawed, the unburied bodies of men and women who had fallen dead in the public thoroughfares—­more than all, the gaunt and emaciated forms of those who still survived, the ghosts of their former, selves, all might have induced at least a doubt whether the suffering inflicted already were not a sufficient punishment, even for crimes so deep as heresy and schism.  But this was far from being the sentiment of Don Frederic.  He seemed to read defiance as well as despair in the sunken eyes which glared upon him as he entered the place, and he took no thought of the pledge which he had informally but sacredly given.

All the officers of the garrison were at once arrested.  Some of them had anticipated the sentence of their conqueror by a voluntary death.  Captain Bordet, a French officer of distinction, like Brutus, compelled his servant to hold the sword upon which he fell, rather than yield himself alive to the vengeance of the Spaniards.  Traits of generosity were not wanting.  Instead of Peter Hasselaer, a young officer who had displayed remarkable bravery throughout the siege, the Spaniards by. mistake arrested his cousin Nicholas.  The prisoner was suffering himself to be led away to the inevitable scaffold without remonstrance, when Peter Hasselaer pushed his way violently through the ranks of the captors.  “If you want Ensign Hasselaer, I am the man.  Let this innocent person depart,” he cried.  Before the sun set his head had fallen.  All the officers were taken to the House of Kleef, where they were immediately executed.—­Captain Ripperda, who had so heroically rebuked the craven conduct of the magistracy, whose eloquence had inflamed the soldiers and citizens to resistance, and whose skill and courage had sustained the siege so long, was among the first to suffer.  A natural son of Cardinal Granvelle, who could have easily saved his life by proclaiming a parentage which he loathed, and Lancelot Brederode, an illegitimate scion of that ancient house, were also among these earliest victims.