The invitation to table was graciously accepted, and the Christmas eve passed off more merrily than the preceding night had done, so far as Vere’s two guests were concerned.  Several distinguished officers were present at the festive board:  Captain Montesquieu de Roquette, Sir Horace Vere, Captains St. Hilaire, Meetkerke, De Ryck, and others among them.  As it was strict fast for the Catholics that evening—­while on the other hand the English, still reckoning according to the old style, would not keep Christmas until ten days later—­the banquet consisted mainly of eggs and fish, and the like meagre articles, in compliment to the guests.  It was, however, as well furnished as could be expected in a beleaguered town, out of whose harbour a winter gale had been for many weeks blowing and preventing all ingress.  There was at least no lack of excellent Bordeaux wine; while the servants waiting upon the table did not fail to observe that Governor Serrano was not in all respects a model of the temperance usually characteristic of his race.  They carefully counted and afterwards related with admiration, not unmingled with horror, that the veteran Spaniard drank fifty-two goblets of claret, and was emptying his glass as fast as filled, although by no means neglecting the beer, the quality of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon.  Yet there seemed to be no perceptible effect produced upon him, save perhaps that he grew a shade more grave and dignified with each succeeding draught.  For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial manner business was by no means neglected; the negotiations for the surrender of the city being conducted on both sides with a fuddled solemnity very edifying for the attendants to contemplate.

Vere complained that the archduke was unreasonable, for he claimed nothing less from his antagonists than their all.  The commissioners replied that all was no more than his own property.  It certainly could not be thought unjust of him to demand his own, and all Flanders was his by legal donation from his Majesty of Spain.  Vere replied that he had never studied jurisprudence, and was not versed at all in that—­science, but he had always heard in England that possession was nine points of the law.  Now it so happened that they, and not his Highness, were in possession of Ostend, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to make a present of it to any one.  The besiegers, he urged, had gained much honour by their steady persistence amid so many dangers; difficulties, and losses;—­but winter had come, the weather was very bad, not a step of progress had been made, and he was bold enough to express his opinion that it would be far more sensible on the part of his Highness, after such deeds of valour, to withdraw his diminished forces out of the freezing and pestilential swamps before Ostend and go into comfortable winter-quarters at Ghent or Bruges.  Enough had been done for glory, and it must certainly now be manifest that he had no chance of taking the city.