obtained a hearing.  A man bold in words as in deeds, he vehemently denounced the pusillanimity which would wait either for Parma or for nightfall.  “What difference will it make,” he asked, “whether we defer our action until either darkness or the General arrives?  In each case we give the enemy time enough to destroy the dyke, and thoroughly to relieve the city.  That done, what good can be accomplished by our arms?  Then our disheartened soldiers will either shrink from a fruitless combat or march to certain death.”  Having thus, very warmly but very sagaciously, defined the position in which all were placed, he proceeded to declare that he claimed, neither for himself nor for his legion, any superiority over the rest of the army.  He knew not that the Italians were more to be relied upon than others in the time of danger, but this he did know, that no man in the world was so devoted as he was to the Prince of Parma.  To show that devotion by waiting with folded arms behind a wall until the Prince should arrive to extricate his followers, was not in his constitution.  He claimed the right to lead his Italians against the enemy at once—­in the front rank, if others chose to follow; alone, if the rest preferred to wait till a better leader should arrive.

The words of the Italian colonel sent a thrill through all who heard him.  Next in command under Capizucca was his camp-marshal, an officer who bore the illustrious name of Piccolomini—­father of the Duke Ottavio, of whom so much was to be heard at a later day throughout the fell scenes of that portion of the eighty years’ tragedy now enacting, which was to be called the Thirty Years’ War of Germany.  The camp-marshal warmly seconded the proposition of his colonel.  Mansfeld, pleased with such enthusiasm among his officers, yielded to their wishes, which were, in truth, his own.  Six companies of the Italian Legion were in his encampment while the remainder were stationed, far away, upon the bridge, under command of his son, Count Charles.  Early in the morning, before the passage across the dyke had been closed the veteran condottiere, pricking his ears as he snuffed the battle from afar, had contrived to send a message to his son.

“Charles, my boy,” were his words, “to-day we must either beat them or burst.”

Old Peter Ernest felt that the long-expected, long-deferred assault was to be made that morning in full force, and that it was necessary for the royalists, on both bridge and dyke, to hold their own.  Piccolomini now drew up three hundred of his Italians, picked veterans all, and led them in marching order to Mansfeld.  That general at the same moment, received another small but unexpected reinforcement.  A portion of the Spanish Legion, which had long been that of Pedro Pacchi, lay at the extreme verge of the Stabroek encampment, several miles away.  Aroused by the distant cannonading, and suspecting what had occurred, Don Juan d’Aquila, the colonel in command, marched