With Sainte Aldegonde came the unlucky Koppen Loppen, and all that could be spared of the English and Scotch troops in Antwerp, under Balfour and Morgan.  With Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau came Reinier Kant, who had just succeeded Paul Buys as Advocate of Holland.  Besides these came two other men, side by side, perhaps in the same boat, of whom the world was like to hear much, from that time forward, and whose names are to be most solemnly linked together, so long as Netherland history shall endure; one, a fair-faced flaxen-haired boy of eighteen, the other a square-visaged, heavy-browed man of forty—­Prince Maurice and John of Olden-Barneveldt.  The statesman had been foremost to urge the claim of William the Silent’s son upon the stadholderate of Holland and Zeeland, and had been, as it were, the youth’s political guardian.  He had himself borne arms more than once before, having shouldered his matchlock under Batenburg, and marched on that officer’s spirited but disastrous expedition for the relief of Haarlem.  But this was the life of those Dutch rebels.  Quill-driving, law-expounding, speech-making, diplomatic missions, were intermingled with very practical business in besieged towns or open fields, with Italian musketeers and Spanish pikemen.  And here, too, young Maurice was taking his first solid lesson in the art of which he was one day to be so distinguished a professor.  It was a sharp beginning.  Upon this ribband of earth, scarce six paces in breadth, with miles of deep water on both sides—­a position recently fortified by the first general of the age, and held by the famous infantry of Spain and Italy—­there was likely to be no prentice-work.

To assault such a position was in truth, as Alexander had declared it to be, a most daring and desperate resolution on the part of the States.  “Soldiers, citizens, and all,” said Parma, “they are obstinate as dogs to try their fortune.”

With wool-sacks, sand-bags, hurdles, planks, and other materials brought with them, the patriots now rapidly entrenched themselves in the position so brilliantly gained; while, without deferring for an instant the great purpose which they had come to effect, the sappers and miners fastened upon the ironbound soil of the dyke, tearing it with pick, mattock, and shovel, digging, delving, and throwing up the earth around them, busy as human beavers, instinctively engaged in a most congenial task.

But the beavers did not toil unmolested.  The large and determined force of Antwerpers and English, Hollanders and Zeelanders, guarded the fortifications as they were rapidly rising, and the pioneers as they were so manfully delving; but the enemy was not idle.  From Fort Saint James, next beyond Saint George, Camillo del Monte led a strong party to the rescue.  There was a tremendous action, foot to foot, breast to breast, with pike and pistol, sword and dagger.  Never since the beginning of the war had there been harder fighting than now upon that narrow isthmus.  “’Twas