the General at last reached Saint George.  On the preservation of that post depended the whole fortune of the day, for Parma had already received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade—­now Fort Victory—­had been regained.  He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted a battery to play point-blank at the enemy’s entrenchments.  Here the final issue was to be made.

The patriots and Spaniards were thus all enclosed in the mile-long space between St. George and the Palisade.  Upon that narrow strip of earth, scarce six paces in width, more than five thousand men met in mortal combat—­a narrow arena for so many gladiators, hemmed in on both sides by the sea.  The patriots had, with solemn ceremony, before starting upon their enterprise, vowed to destroy the dyke and relieve Antwerp, or to perish in the attempt.  They were true to their vow.  Not the ancient Batavians or Nervii had ever manifested more tenacity against the Roman legions than did their descendants against the far-famed Spanish infantry upon this fatal day.  The fight on the Kowenstyn was to be long remembered in the military annals of Spain and Holland.  Never, since the curtain first rose upon the great Netherland tragedy, had there been a fiercer encounter.  Flinching was impossible.  There was scant room for the play of pike and dagger, and, close packed as were the combatants, the dead could hardly fall to the ground.  It was a mile-long series of separate mortal duels, and the oozy dyke was soon slippery with blood.

From both sides, under Capizucca and Aquila on the one band, and under Alexander on the other, the entrenchments of the patriots were at last assaulted, and as the royalists fell thick and fast beneath the breast-work which they were storming, their comrades clambered upon their bodies, and attempted, from such vantage-ground, to effect an entrance.  Three times the invaders were beaten back with heavy loss, and after each repulse the attack was renewed with fresh vigour, while within the entrenchments the pioneers still plied the pick and shovel, undismayed by the uproar around them.

A fourth assault, vigorously made, was cheerfully repelled by the Antwerpers and Hollanders, clustering behind their breast-works, and looking steadily into their enemies’ eyes.  Captain Heraugiere—­of whom more was to be heard one day—­had led two hundred men into action, and now found himself at the head of only thirteen.  The loss had been as severe among many other patriot companies, as well as in the Spanish ranks, and again the pikemen of Spain and Italy faltered before the iron visages and cordial blows of the Hollanders.