of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon.  Yet there seemed to be no perceptible effect produced upon him, save perhaps that he grew a shade more grave and dignified with each succeeding draught.  For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial manner business was by no means neglected; the negotiations for the surrender of the city being conducted on both sides with a fuddled solemnity very edifying for the attendants to contemplate.

Vere complained that the archduke was unreasonable, for he claimed nothing less from his antagonists than their all.  The commissioners replied that all was no more than his own property.  It certainly could not be thought unjust of him to demand his own, and all Flanders was his by legal donation from his Majesty of Spain.  Vere replied that he had never studied jurisprudence, and was not versed at all in that—­science, but he had always heard in England that possession was nine points of the law.  Now it so happened that they, and not his Highness, were in possession of Ostend, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to make a present of it to any one.  The besiegers, he urged, had gained much honour by their steady persistence amid so many dangers; difficulties, and losses;—­but winter had come, the weather was very bad, not a step of progress had been made, and he was bold enough to express his opinion that it would be far more sensible on the part of his Highness, after such deeds of valour, to withdraw his diminished forces out of the freezing and pestilential swamps before Ostend and go into comfortable winter-quarters at Ghent or Bruges.  Enough had been done for glory, and it must certainly now be manifest that he had no chance of taking the city.

Serrano retorted that it was no secret to the besiegers that the garrison had dwindled to a handful; that it was quite impossible for them to defend their outer works any longer; that with the loss of the external boulevard the defence of the place would be impossible, and that, on the contrary, it was for the republicans to resign themselves to their fate.  They, too, had done enough for glory, and had nothing for it but to retire into the centre of their ruined little nest, where they must burrow until the enemy should have leisure to entirely unearth them, which would be a piece of work very easily and rapidly accomplished.

This was called negotiation; and thus the winter’s evening wore away, until the Spaniards; heavy with fatigue and wine, were without much difficulty persuaded to seek the couches prepared for them.

Next day the concourse of people around the city was Christmas, wonderful to behold.  The rumour had spread through the, provinces, and was on the, wing to all foreign countries, that Ostend had capitulated, and that the commissioners were at that moment arranging the details.  The cardinal-archduke, in complete Milanese armour, with a splendid feather-bush waving from his casque and surrounded by his brilliant body-guard,