a last refuge behind the battery placed on the high-water line of the beach.  In the confusion and panic Sir Francis Vere went down at last.  His horse, killed by a stray shot fell with and upon him, and the heroic Englishman would then and there have finished his career—­for he would hardly have found quarter from the Spaniards—­had not Sir Robert Drury, riding by in the tumult, observed him as he lay almost exhausted in the sand.  By his exertion and that of his servant Higham, Vere was rescued from his perilous situation, placed on the crupper of Sir Robert’s horse, and so borne off the field.

The current of the retreating and pursuing hosts swept by the spot where Maurice sat on horseback, watching and directing the battle.  His bravest and best general, the veteran Vere, had fallen; his cousin Lewis was now as utterly overthrown as his brother Ernest had been but a few hours before at the fatal bridge of Leffingen; the whole army, the only army, of the States was defeated, broken, panic-struck; the Spanish shouts of victory rang on every side.  Plainly the day was lost, and with it the republic.  In the blackest hour that the Netherland commonwealth had ever known, the fortitude of the stadholder did not desert him.  Immoveable as a rock in the torrent he stemmed the flight of his troops.  Three squadrons of reserved cavalry, Balen’s own, Vere’s own, and Cecil’s, were all that was left him, and at the head of these he essayed an advance.  He seemed the only man on the field not frightened; and menacing, conjuring, persuading the fugitives for the love of fatherland, of himself and his house, of their own honour, not to disgrace and destroy themselves for ever; urging that all was not yet lost, and beseeching them at least to take despair for their master, and rather to die like men on the field than to drown like dogs in the sea, he succeeded in rallying a portion of those nearest him.  The enemy paused in their mad pursuit, impressed even more than were the States’ troops at the dauntless bearing of the prince.  It was one of those supreme moments in battle and in history which are sometimes permitted to influence the course of events during a long future.  The archduke and his generals committed a grave error in pausing for an instant in their career.  Very soon it was too late to repair the fault, for the quick and correct eye of the stadholder saw the point to which the whole battle was tending, and he threw his handful of reserved cavalry, with such of the fugitives as had rallied, straight towards the battery on the beach.

It was arranged that Balen should charge on the strand, Horace Vere through the upper downs, and Cecil along the margin of the beach.  Balen rode slowly through the heavy sand, keeping his horses well in wind, and at the moment he touched the beach, rushed with fury upon the enemy’s foot near the battery.  The moment was most opportune, for the last shot had been fired from the guns, and they had just been nearly