and both rolled to the ground.  A fortunate carbine-shot from one of the Dutch captain’s comrades went through the Spaniard’s head.  Meantime the little band, so insignificant in numbers, was driven out of the citadel.  Mol fell to the ground with a shattered leg, and reproached his companions, who sought to remove him, for neglecting their work in order to save his life.  Let them take the fort, he implored them, and when that was done they might find leisure to pick him up if they chose.  While he was speaking the principal tower of the fortress blew up, and sixty of the garrison were launched into the air.  A well-directed shot had set fire to the magazine.  The assault was renewed with fresh numbers, and the Dutch were soon masters of the place.  Never was a stronghold more audaciously or more successfully stormed.  The garrison surrendered.  The women and children, fearing to be at the mercy of those who had been depicted to them as cannibals, had already made their escape, and were scrambling like squirrels among the volcanic cliffs.  Famine soon compelled them to come down, however, when they experienced sufficiently kind treatment, but were all deported in Dutch vessels to the Philippine islands.  The conquerors not only spared the life of the King of Tydor, but permitted him to retain his crown.  At his request the citadel was razed to the ground.  It would have been better perhaps to let it stand, and it was possible that in the heart of the vanquished potentate some vengeance was lurking which might bear evil fruit at a later day.  Meantime the Portuguese were driven entirely out of the Moluccas, save the island of Timos, where they still retained a not very important citadel.

The East India Company was now in possession of the whole field.  The Moluccas and the clove trade were its own, and the Dutch republic had made manifest to the world that more potent instruments had now been devised for parcelling out the new world than papal decrees, although signed by the immaculate hand of a Borgia.

During the main operations already sketched in the Netherlands, and during those vastly more important oriental movements to which the reader’s attention has just been called, a detached event or two deserves notice.

Twice during the summer campaign of this year Du Terrail, an enterprising French refugee in the service of the archdukes, had attempted to surprise the important city of Bergen-op-Zoom.  On the 21st August the intended assault had been discovered in time to prevent any very serious conflict on, either side.  On the 20th September the experiment was renewed at an hour after midnight.  Du Terrail, having arranged the attack at three different points, had succeeded in forcing his way across the moat and through one of the gates.  The trumpets of the foremost Spaniards already sounded in, the streets.  It was pouring with rain; the town was pitch dark.  But the energetic Paul Bax was governor of the place, a man