The hardy adventurers who attempted that feat with tidings of despair were almost invariably captured.

This blockading fleet took regular part in the daily cannonade; while, on the other hand, the artillery practice from the landbatteries of Maurice and Hohenlo was more perfect than anything ever known before in the Netherlands or France.

And the result was that in the course of the cannonade which lasted nearly ninety days, not more than four houses in the city escaped injury.  The approaches were brought, every hour, nearer and nearer to the walls.  With subterranean lines converging in the form of the letter Y, the prince had gradually burrowed his way beneath the principal bastion.

Hohenlo, representative of the older school of strategy, had on one occasion ventured to resist the authority of the commander-in-chief.  He had constructed a fort at Ramsdonck.  Maurice then commanded the erection of another, fifteen hundred yards farther back.  It was as much a part of his purpose to defend himself against the attempts of Mansfeld’s relieving force, as to go forward against the city.  Hohenlo objected that it would be impossible to sustain himself against a sudden attack in so isolated a position.  Maurice insisted.  In the midst of the altercation Hohenlo called to the men engaged in throwing up the new fortifications:  “Here, you captains and soldiers,” he cried, “you are delivered up here to be butchered.  You may drop work and follow me to the old fort.”

“And I swear to you,” said Maurice quietly, “that the first man who moves from this spot shall be hanged.”

No one moved.  The fort was completed and held to the and; Hohenlo sulkily acquiescing in the superiority which this stripling—­his former pupil—­had at last vindicated over all old-fashioned men-at-arms.

From the same cause which was apt to render Hohenlo’s services inefficient, the prince was apt to suffer inconvenience in the persons placed in still nearer relation to himself.  Count Philip of Nassau, brother of the wise and valiant Lewis William, had already done much brilliant campaigning against the Spaniards both in France and the provinces.  Unluckily, he was not only a desperate fighter but a mighty drinker, and one day, after a dinner-party and potent carouse at Colonel Brederode’s quarters, he thought proper, in doublet and hose, without armour of any kind, to mount his horse, in order to take a solitary survey of the enemy’s works.  Not satisfied with this piece of reconnoitering—­which he effected with much tipsy gravity, but probably without deriving any information likely to be of value to the commanding general—­he then proceeded to charge in person a distant battery.  The deed was not commendable in a military point of view.  A fire was opened upon him at long range so soon as he was discovered, and at the same time the sergeant-major of his regiment and an equerry of Prince Maurice started in pursuit, determined to bring him off if possible, before his life had been thus absurdly sacrificed.  Fortunately for him they came to the rescue in time, pulled him from his horse, and succeeded in bringing him away unharmed.  The sergeant-major, however, Sinisky by name, while thus occupied in preserving the count’s life, was badly wounded in the leg by a musket-shot from the fort; which casualty was the only result of this after-dinner assault.