a fleet from both sides was cannonading the Spanish entrenchments, the salt water was flowing across the breach already made.  His seven months’ work, it seemed, had come to nought.  The navigation was already open from the sea to Antwerp, the Lowenstyn was in the rebels’ hands.  But Alexander was not prone to premature despair.  “I arrived,” said he to Philip in a letter written on the same evening, “at the very nick of time.”  A less hopeful person might have thought that he had arrived several hours too late.  Having brought with him every man that could be spared from Beveren and from the bridge, he now ordered Camillo del Monte to transport some additional pieces of artillery from Holy Cross and from Saint James to Fort Saint Georg.  At the same time a sharp cannonade was to be maintained upon the rebel fleet from all the forts.

Mondragon, with a hundred musketeers and pikemen, was sent forward likewise as expeditiously as possible to Saint George.  No one could be more alert.  The battered veteran, hero of some of the most remarkable military adventures that history has ever recorded,’ fought his way on foot, in the midst of the fray, like a young ensign who had his first laurels to win.  And, in truth, the day was not one for cunning manoeuvres, directed, at a distance, by a skillful tactician.  It was a brisk close contest, hand to hand and eye to eye—­a Homeric encounter, in which the chieftains were to prove a right to command by their personal prowess.  Alexander, descending suddenly—­dramatically, as it were—­when the battle seemed lost—­like a deity from the clouds-was to justify, by the strength of his arm, the enthusiasm which his name always awakened.  Having, at a glance, taken in the whole situation, he made his brief arrangements, going from rank to rank, and disposing his troops in the most effective manner.  He said but few words, but his voice had always a telling effect.

“The man who refuses, this day, to follow me,” he said, “has never had regard to his own honour, nor has God’s cause or the King’s ever been dear to his heart.”

His disheartened Spaniards and Italians—­roused as by a magic trumpet—­eagerly demanded to be led against the rebels.  And now from each end of the dyke, the royalists were advancing toward the central position occupied by the patriots.  While Capizucca and Aquila were occupied at Fort Victory, Parma was steadily cutting his way from Holy Cross to Saint George.  On foot, armed with sword and shield, and in coat of mail, and marching at the head of his men along the dyke, surrounded by Bevilacqua, Bentivoglio, Manriquez, Sforza, and other officers of historic name and distinguished courage, now upon the summit of the causeway, now on its shelving banks, now breast-high in the waters, through which lay the perilous path, contending at every inch with the scattered bands of the patriots, who slowly retired to their entrenched camp, and with the Antwerp and Zeeland vessels, whose balls tore through the royalist ranks,