Here then were delays additional to that caused by Spinola’s illness.  On the other hand, the levies of the republic were for a season paralysed by the altercation, soon afterwards adjusted, between Henry iv. and the Duke of Bouillon, brother-in-law of the stadholder and of the Palatine, and by the petty war between the Duke and Hanseatic city of Brunswick, in which Ernest of Nassau was for a time employed.

During this period of almost suspended animation the war gave no signs of life, except in a few spasmodic efforts on the part of the irrepressible Du Terrail.  Early in the spring, not satisfied with his double and disastrous repulse before Bergen-op-Zoom, that partisan now determined to surprise Sluy’s.  That an attack was impending became known to the governor of that city, the experienced Colonel Van der Noot.  Not dreaming, however, that any mortal—­even the most audacious of Frenchmen and adventurers—­would ever think of carrying a city like Sluy’s by surprise, defended as it was by a splendid citadel and by a whole chain of forts and water-batteries, and capable of withstanding three months long, as it had so recently done, a siege in form by the acknowledged master of the beleaguering science, the methodical governor event calmly to bed one fine night in June.  His slumbers were disturbed before morning by the sound of trumpets sounding Spanish melodies in the streets, and by a, great uproar and shouting.  Springing out of bed, he rushed half-dressed to the rescue.  Less vigilant than Paul Bax had been the year before in Bergen, he found that Du Terrail had really effected a surprise.  At the head of twelve hundred Walloons and Irishmen, that enterprising officer had waded through the drowned land of Cadzand, with the promised support of a body of infantry under Frederic Van den Berg, from Damm, had stolen noiselessly by the forts of that island unchallenged and unseen, had effected with petards a small breach through the western gate of the city, and with a large number of his followers, creeping two and two through the gap, had found himself for a time master of Sluys.

The profound silence of the place had however somewhat discouraged the intruders.  The whole population were as sound asleep as was the excellent commandant, but the stillness in the deserted streets suggested an ambush, and they moved stealthily forward, feeling their way with caution towards the centre of the town.

It so happened, moreover, that the sacristan had forgotten to wind up the great town clock.  The agreement with the party first entering and making their way to the opposite end of the city, had been that at the striking of a certain hour after midnight they should attack simultaneously and with a great outcry all the guardhouses, so that the garrison might be simultaneously butchered.  The clock never struck, the signal was never given, and Du Terrail and his immediate comrades remained near the western gate, suspicious