of ending both the siege and the forty years’ war this January night.  But they had reckoned without their wily English host.  As they came nearer—­van, and at last reserve—­they dropped in great heaps under the steady fire of the musketry—­as Philip Flaming, looking on, exclaimed—­like apples when the autumn wind blows through the orchard.  And as the foremost still pressed nearer and nearer, striving to clamber up the shattered counterscarp and through every practicable breach, the English, Hollanders, and Zeelanders, met them in the gap, not only at push of pike, but with their long daggers and with flaming pitchhoops, and hurled them down to instant death.

And thus around the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell’s Mouth, the battle raged nearly two hours long, without an inch of ground being gained by the assailants.  The dead and dying were piled beneath the walls, while still the reserves, goaded up to the mark by the cavalry, mounted upon the bodies of their fallen comrades and strove to plant their, ladders.  But now the tide was on the flood, the harbour was filling, and cool Auditor Fleming, whom nothing escaped quietly asked the general’s permission to open the western’ sluice.  It was obvious, he observed, that the fury of the attack was over, and that the enemy would soon be effecting a retreat before the water should have risen too high.  He even pointed out many stragglers attempting to escape through the already deepening shallows.  Vere’s consent was at once given, the flood-gate was opened, and the assailants such as still survived—­panic-struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old harbour towards their camp.  It was too late.  The waters were out, and the contending currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the submerged land, and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them were miserably drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.  Horses and riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several of their corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of Flushing.

Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of being butchered.  Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given.  Count Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood, or doubted his solvency.  Durango, marshal of the camp, Don Alvarez de Suarez, and Don Matteo Antonio, sergeant-major and quarter-master-general, whose adventures as a hostage within the town on Christmas eve have so recently been related, were also slain.