nature of the ground.  Continuing to feel his way cautiously through the wilderness of quagmire, he soon came upon a very formidable obstacle.  The well-built and well-equipped redoubt of St. Catharine rose frowning before him, overshadowing his path, and completely prohibiting all further progress.  Plainly it would be necessary to reduce this work at once, unless he were willing to abandon his enterprise.  He sent back to Cadzand for artillery, but it was flood-tide, the waters were out, and it was not till late in the afternoon that nine pieces arrived.  The stadholder ordered a cannonade, less with the hope of producing an impression by such inadequate means on so strong a work, than with the intention of showing the enemy that he had brought field-guns with him, and was not merely on an accidental foray.  At the same time, having learned that the garrison, which was commanded by Trivulzio, was composed of only a few regular troops, and a large force of guerillas, he gave notice that such combatants were not entitled to quarter, and that if captured they would be all put to the sword.  The reply to this threat was not evacuation but defiance.  Especially a volunteer ensign mounted upon a rampart, and danced about, waving his flag gaily in the face of the assailants.  Maurice bitterly remarked to his staff that such a man alone was enough to hold the fort.  As it was obvious that the place would require a siege in form, and that it would be almost impossible to establish batteries upon that quaking soil, where there was no dry land for cavalry or artillery to move, Maurice ordered the nine guns to be carried back to Cadzand that night, betaking himself, much disappointed, in the same direction.”  Yet it so happened that the cannoneers, floundering through the bogs, made such an outcry—­especially when one of their guns became so bemired that it was difficult for them to escape the disgrace of losing it—­that the garrison, hearing a great tumult, which they could not understand, fell into one of those panics to which raw and irregular troops are liable.  Nothing would convince them that fresh artillery had not arrived, that the terrible stadholder with an immense force was not creating invincible batteries, and that they should be all butchered in cold blood, according to proclamation, before the dawn of day.  They therefore evacuated the place under cover of the night, so that this absurd accident absolutely placed Maurice in possession of the very fort—­without striking a blow—­which he was about to abandon in despair, and which formed the first great obstacle to his advance.

Having occupied St. Catharine’s, he moved forward to Ysendyke, a strongly fortified place three leagues to the eastward of Sluys and invested it in form.  Meantime a great danger was impending over him.  A force of well-disciplined troops, to the number of two thousand, dropped down in boats from Sluy’s to Cadzand, for the purpose of surprising the force left to guard that important place.