All day long the cannon thundered—­a bombardment such as had never before been dreamed of in those days, two thousand shots having been distinctly counted, by the burghers.  There was but languid response from the besieged, who were reserving their strength.  At last, to the brief winter’s day succeeded a pitch-dark evening.  It was dead low tide at seven.  At that hour the drums suddenly beat alarm along the whole line of fortifications from the Gullet on the east to the old harbour on the west, while through the mirky atmosphere sounded the trumpets of the assault, the shouts of the Spanish and Italian commanders, and the fierce responsive yells of their troops.  Sir Francis, having visited every portion of the works, and satisfied himself that every man in the garrison was under arms, and that all his arrangements had been fulfilled, now sat on horseback, motionless as a statue, within the Sand Hill.  Among the many serious and fictitious attacks now making he waited calmly for the one great assault, even allowing some of the enemy to scale the distant counterscarp of the external works towards the south, which he had by design left insufficiently guarded.  It was but a brief suspense, for in a few moments two thousand men had rushed through the bed of the old harbour, out of which the tide had ebbed, and were vigorously assailing the Sand Hill and the whole length of its curtain.  The impenetrable darkness made it impossible to count, but the noise and the surging fury of the advance rendered it obvious that the critical moment had arrived.  Suddenly a vivid illumination burst forth.  Great pine torches, piles of tar-barrels, and heaps of other inflammable material, which had been carefully arranged in Fort Porcupine, were now all at once lighted by Vere’s command.

As the lurid blaze flashed far and wide there started out of the gloom not only the long lines of yellow jerkined pikemen and arquebuseers, with their storm-hoods and scaling ladders, rushing swiftly towards the forts, but beyond the broken sea dyke the reserved masses supporting the attack, drawn up in solid clumps of spears, with their gay standards waving above them, and with a strong force of cavalry in iron corslet and morion stationed in the rear to urge on the infantry and prevent their faltering in the night’s work, became visible—­phantom-like but perfectly distinct.

At least four thousand men were engaged in this chief attack, and the light now permitted the besieged to direct their fire from cannon, demi-cannon, culverin, and snaphance, with fatal effect.  The assailants, thinned, straggling, but undismayed, closed up their ranks, and still came fiercely on.  Never had Spaniards, Walloons, and Italians, manifested greater contempt of death than on this occasion.  They knew that the archduke and the infanta were waiting breathlessly in Fort St. Albert for the news of that victory of which the feigned negotiations had defrauded them at Christmas, and they felt perfectly confident