Meantime, while the short November day was fast declining, the combat still raged in the interior of the city.  Various currents of conflict, forcing their separate way through many streets, had at last mingled in the Grande Place.  Around this irregular, not very spacious square, stood the gorgeous Hotel de Ville, and the tall, many storied, fantastically gabled, richly decorated palaces of the guilds, Here a long struggle took place.  It was terminated for a time by the cavalry of Vargas, who, arriving through the streets of Saint Joris, accompanied by the traitor Van Ende, charged decisively into the melee.  The masses were broken, but multitudes of armed men found refuge in the buildings, and every house became a fortress.  From, every window and balcony a hot fire was poured into the square, as, pent in a corner, the burghers stood at last at bay.  It was difficult to carry the houses by storm, but they were soon set on fire.  A large number of sutlers and other varlets had accompanied the Spaniards from the citadel, bringing torches and kindling materials for the express purpose of firing the town.  With great dexterity, these means were now applied, and in a brief interval, the City-hall, and other edifices on the square were in flames.  The conflagration spread with rapidity, house after house, street after street, taking fire.  Nearly a thousand buildings, in the most splendid and wealthy quarter of the city, were soon in a blaze, and multitudes of human beings were burned with them.  In the City-hall many were consumed, while others, leaped from the windows to renew the combat below.  The many tortuous, streets which led down a slight descent from the rear of the Town house to the quays were all one vast conflagration.  On the other side, the magnificent cathedral, separated from the Grande Place by a single row of buildings, was lighted up, but not attacked by the flames.  The tall spire cast its gigantic shadow across the last desperate conflict.  In the street called the Canal au Sucre, immediately behind the Town-house, there was a fierce struggle, a horrible massacre.  A crowd of burghers; grave magistrates, and such of the German soldiers as remained alive, still confronted the ferocious Spaniards.  There amid the flaming desolation, Goswyn Verreyck, the heroic margrave of the city, fought with the energy of hatred and despair.  The burgomaster, Van der Meere, lay dead at his feet; senators, soldiers, citizens, fell fast around him, and he sank at last upon a heap of slain.  With him effectual resistance ended.  The remaining combatants were butchered, or were slowly forced downward to perish in the Scheld.  Women, children, old men, were killed in countless numbers, and still, through all this havoc, directly over the heads of the struggling throng, suspended in mid-air above the din and smoke of the conflict, there sounded, every half-quarter of every hour, as if in gentle mockery, from the belfry of the cathedral, the tender and melodious chimes.