filling, and cool Auditor Fleming, whom nothing escaped quietly asked the general’s permission to open the western’ sluice.  It was obvious, he observed, that the fury of the attack was over, and that the enemy would soon be effecting a retreat before the water should have risen too high.  He even pointed out many stragglers attempting to escape through the already deepening shallows.  Vere’s consent was at once given, the flood-gate was opened, and the assailants such as still survived—­panic-struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old harbour towards their camp.  It was too late.  The waters were out, and the contending currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the submerged land, and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them were miserably drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.  Horses and riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several of their corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of Flushing.

Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of being butchered.  Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given.  Count Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood, or doubted his solvency.  Durango, marshal of the camp, Don Alvarez de Suarez, and Don Matteo Antonio, sergeant-major and quarter-master-general, whose adventures as a hostage within the town on Christmas eve have so recently been related, were also slain.

On the eastern side Bucquoy’s attack was an entire failure.  His arrangements were too slowly made, and before he could bring his men to the assault the water was so high in the Gullet that they refused to lay their pontoons and march to certain death.  Only at lowest ebb, and with most exquisite skill in fording, would it have been possible to effect anything like an earnest demonstration or a surprise.  Moreover some of the garrison, giving themselves out as deserters, stole out of the Spanish Half-moon, which had been purposely almost denuded of its defenders, towards the enemy’s entrenchments, and offered to lead a body of Spaniards into that ravelin.  Bucquoy fell into the trap, so that the detachment, after a victory as easily effected as that in the southern forts, found themselves when the fight was over not the captors but the caught.  A few attempted to escape and were driven into the sea; the rest were massacred.

Fifteen hundred of the enemy’s dead were counted and registered by Auditor Fleming.  The whole number of the slain and drowned was reckoned as high as two thousand, which was at least, a quarter of the whole besieging army.  And so ended this winter night’s assault, by which the archduke had fondly hoped to avenge himself for Vere’s perfidy, and to terminate the war at a blow.  Only sixty of the garrison were killed, and Sir Horace Vere was wounded.