nothing came of the burgomaster’s entreaties save desultory skirmishing and unsuccessful enterprises.  An especial misfortune happened in one of these midnight undertakings.  Teligny ventured forth in a row-barge, with scarcely any companions, to notify the Zeelanders of a contemplated movement, in which their co-operation was desired.  It was proposed that the Antwerp troops should make a fictitious demonstration upon Fort Ordam, while at the same moment the States’ troops from Fort Lillo should make an assault upon the forts on Kowenstyn Dyke; and in this important enterprise the Zeeland vessels were requested to assist.  But the brave Teligny nearly forfeited his life by his rashness, and his services were, for a long time, lost to the cause of liberty.  It had been better to send a less valuable officer upon such hazardous yet subordinate service.  The drip of his oars was heard in the darkness.  He was pursued by a number of armed barges, attacked, wounded severely in the shoulder, and captured.  He threw his letters overboard, but they were fished out of the water, carried to Parma, and deciphered, so that the projected attack upon the Kowenstyn was discovered, and, of necessity, deferred.  As for Teligny, he was taken, as a most valuable prize, into the enemy’s camp, and was soon afterwards thrust into prison at Tournay, where he remained six years—­ one year longer than the period which his illustrious father had been obliged to consume in the infamous dungeon at Mons. Few disasters could have been more keenly felt by the States than the loss of this brilliant and devoted French chieftain, who, young as he was, had already become very dear to the republic; and Sainte Aldegonde was severely blamed for sending so eminent a personage on that dangerous expedition, and for sending him, too, with an insufficient convoy.

Still Alexander felt uncertain as to the result.  He was determined to secure Antwerp, but he yet thought it possible to secure it by negotiation.  The enigmatical policy maintained by France perplexed him; for it did not seem possible that so much apparent solemnity and earnestness were destined to lead to an impotent and infamous conclusion.  He was left, too, for a long time in ignorance of his own master’s secret schemes, he was at liberty to guess, and to guess only, as to the projects of the league, he was without adequate means to carry out to a certain triumph his magnificent enterprise, and he was in constant alarm lest he should be suddenly assailed by an overwhelming French force.  Had a man sat upon the throne of Henry III., at that moment, Parma’s bridge-making and dyke-fortifying skilful as they were—­would have been all in vain.  Meantime, in uncertainty as to the great issue, but resolved to hold firmly to his purpose, he made repeated conciliatory offers to the States with one hand, while he steadily prosecuted his aggressive schemes with the other.