Yet in the midst of his apparent triumph he had, at times, almost despair in his heart.  He felt really at the last gasp.  His troops had dwindled to the mere shadow of an army, and they were forced to live almost upon air.  The cavalry had nearly vanished.  The garrisons in the different cities were starving.  The burghers had no food for the soldiers nor for themselves.  “As for the rest of the troops,” said Alexander, “they are stationed where they have nothing to subsist upon, save salt water and the dykes, and if the Lord does not grant a miracle, succour, even if sent by your Majesty, will arrive too late.”  He assured his master, that he could not go on more than five or six days longer, that he had been feeding his soldiers for a long time from hand to mouth, and that it would soon be impossible for him to keep his troops together.  If he did not disband them they would run away.

His pictures were most dismal, his supplications for money very moving but he never alluded to himself.  All his anxiety, all his tenderness, were for his soldiers.  “They must have food,” he said:  “’Tis impossible to sustain them any longer by driblets, as I have done for a long time.  Yet how can I do it without money?  And I have none at all, nor do I see where to get a single florin.”

But these revelations were made only to his master’s most secret ear.  His letters, deciphered after three centuries, alone make manifest the almost desperate condition in which the apparently triumphant general was placed, and the facility with which his antagonists, had they been well guided and faithful to themselves, might have driven him into the sea.

But to those adversaries he maintained an attitude of serene and smiling triumph.  A spy, sent from the city to obtain intelligence for the anxious burghers, had gained admission into his lines, was captured and brought before the Prince.  He expected, of course, to be immediately hanged.  On the contrary, Alexander gave orders that he should be conducted over every part of the encampment.  The forts, the palisades, the bridge, were all to be carefully exhibited and explained to him as if he had been a friendly visitor entitled to every information.  He was requested to count the pieces of artillery in the forts, on the bridge, in the armada.  After thoroughly studying the scene he was then dismissed with a safe-conduct to the city.

“Go back to those who sent you,” said the Prince.  “Convey to them the information in quest of which you came.  Apprize them of every thing which you have inspected, counted, heard explained.  Tell them further, that the siege will never be abandoned, and that this bridge will be my sepulcher or my pathway into Antwerp.”