were still wallowing and struggling, single file, in the marshy entrance, through which only the cavalry had forced their way.  Here was a dilemma.  Should Maurice look calmly on while the enemy, whom he had made so painful a forced march to meet, moved off out of reach before his eyes?  Yet certainly this was no slight triumph in itself.  There sat the stadholder on his horse at the head of eight hundred carabineers, and there marched four of Philip’s best infantry regiments, garnished with some of his most renowned cavalry squadrons, anxious not to seek but to avoid a combat.  First came the Germans of Count Sultz, the musketeers in front, and the spearsmen, of which the bulk of this and of all the regiments was composed, marching in closely serried squares, with the company standards waving over each.  Next, arranged in the same manner, came the Walloon regiments of Hachicourt and of La Barlotte.  Fourth and last came the famous Neapolitans of Marquis Trevico.  The cavalry squadrons rode on the left of the infantry, and were commanded by Nicolas Basta, a man who had been trampling upon the Netherlanders ever since the days of Alva, with whom he had first come to the country.

And these were the legions—­these very men or their immediate predecessors—­these Italians, Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons, who during so many terrible years had stormed and sacked almost every city of the Netherlands, and swept over the whole breadth of those little provinces as with the besom of destruction.

Both infantry and cavalry, that picked little army of Varax was of the very best that had shared in the devil’s work which had been the chief industry practised for so long in the obedient Netherlands.  Was it not madness for the stadholder, at the head of eight hundred horsemen, to assail such an army as this?  Was it not to invoke upon his head the swift vengeance of Heaven?  Nevertheless, the painstaking, cautious Maurice did not hesitate.  He ordered Hohenlo, with all the Brabantine cavalry, to ride as rapidly as their horses could carry them along the edge of the plain, and behind the tangled woodland, by which the movement would be concealed.  He was at all hazards to intercept the enemy’s vanguard before it should reach the fatal pass.  Vere and Marcellus Bax meanwhile, supported now by Edmont with the Nymegen squadrons, were to threaten the Spanish rear.  A company of two under Laurentz was kept by Maurice near his person in reserve.

The Spaniards steadily continued their march, but as they became aware of certain slight and indefinite movements on their left, their cavalry, changing their position, were transferred from the right to the left of the line of march, and now rode between the infantry and the belt of woods.