long tormented him, and scarcely able to sustain longer the burthen of his armor, he calmly awaited his fate.  A troop of the enemy advanced soon afterwards, and Aremberg fell, covered with wounds, fighting like a hero of Homer, single-handed, against a battalion, with a courage worthy a better cause and a better fate.  The sword by which he received his final death-blow was that of the Seigneur do Haultain.  That officer having just seen his brother slain before his eyes, forgot the respect due to unsuccessful chivalry.

The battle was scarcely finished when an advancing trumpet was heard.  The sound caused the victors to pause in their pursuit, and enabled a remnant of the conquered Spaniards to escape.  Meghem’s force was thought to be advancing.  That general had indeed arrived, but he was alone.  He had reached Zuidlaren, a village some four leagues from the scene of action, on the noon of that day.  Here he had found a letter from Aremberg, requesting him to hasten.  He had done so.  His troops, however, having come from Coevorden that morning, were unable to accomplish so long a march in addition.  The Count, accompanied by a few attendants, reached the neighborhood of Heiliger Lee only in time to meet with some of the camp sutlers and other fugitives, from whom he learned the disastrous news of the defeat.  Finding that all was lost, he very properly returned to Zuidlaren, from which place he made the best of his way to Groningen.  That important city, the key of Friesland, he was thus enabled to secure.  The troops which he brought, in addition to the four German vanderas of Schaumburg, already quartered there, were sufficient to protect it against the ill-equipped army of Louis Nassau.

The patriot leader had accomplished, after all, but a barren victory.  He had, to be sure, destroyed a number of Spaniards, amounting, according to the different estimates, from five hundred to sixteen hundred men.  He had also broken up a small but veteran army.  More than all, he had taught the Netherlanders, by this triumphant termination to a stricken field, that the choice troops of Spain were not invincible.  But the moral effect of the victory was the only permanent one.  The Count’s badly paid troops could with difficulty be kept together.  He had no sufficient artillery to reduce the city whose possession would have proved so important to the cause.  Moreover, in common with the Prince of Orange and all his brethren, he had been called to mourn for the young and chivalrous Adolphus, whose life-blood had stained the laurels of this first patriot victory.  Having remained, and thus wasted the normal three days upon the battle-field, Louis now sat down before Groningen, fortifying and entrenching himself in a camp within cannonshot of the city.

On the 23rd we have seen that Aremberg had written, full of confidence, to the Governor-general, promising soon to send him good news of the beggars.  On the 26th, Count Meghem wrote that, having spoken with a man who had helped to place Aremberg in his coffin, he could hardly entertain any farther doubt as to his fate.