The stadholder hesitated.  He was prone in great emergencies to hesitate at first, but immovable when his resolution was taken.  Vere, who was asleep in his tent, was sent for and consulted.  Most of the generals were inclined to believe that the demonstrations at Oudenburg, which had been so successful, were merely a bravado of Rivas, the commander of the permanent troops in that district, which were comparatively insignificant in numbers.  Vere thought otherwise.  He maintained that the archduke was already in force within a few hours’ march of them, as he had always supposed would be the case.  His opinion was not shared by the rest, and he went back to his truckle-bed, feeling that a brief repose was necessary for the heavy work which would soon be upon him.  At midnight the Englishman was again called from his slumbers.  Another messenger, sent directly from the States-General at Ostend, had made his way to the stadholder.  This time there was no possibility of error, for Colonel Piron had sent the accord with the garrison commanders of the forts which had been so shamefully violated, and which bore the signature of the archduke.

It was now perfectly obvious that a pitched battle was to be fought before another sunset, and most anxious were the deliberations in that brief midsummer’s night.  The dilemma was as grave a one as commander-in-chief had ever to solve in a few hours.  A portentous change had come over the prospects of the commonwealth since the arrival of these despatches.  But a few hours before, and never had its destiny seemed so secure, its attitude more imposing.  The little republic, which Spain had been endeavouring forty years long to subjugate, had already swept every Spanish soldier out of its territory, had repeatedly carried fire and sword into Spain itself, and even into its distant dependencies, and at that moment—­after effecting in a masterly manner the landing of a great army in the very face of the man who claimed to be sovereign of all the Netherlands, and after marching at ease through the heart of his territory—­was preparing a movement, with every prospect of success, which should render the hold of that sovereign on any portion of Netherland soil as uncertain and shifting as the sands on which the States army was now encamped.

The son of the proscribed and murdered rebel stood at the head of as powerful and well-disciplined an army as had ever been drawn up in line of battle on that blood-stained soil.  The daughter of the man who had so long oppressed the provinces might soon be a fugitive from the land over which she had so recently been endowed with perpetual sovereignty.  And now in an instant these visions were fading like a mirage.

The archduke, whom poverty and mutiny were to render powerless against invasion, was following close up upon the heels of the triumphant army of the stadholder.  A decision was immediately necessary.  The siege of Nieuport was over before it had begun.  Surprise had failed, assault for the moment was impossible, the manner how best to confront the advancing foe the only question.