clothes. Then they gave me all the gold, which weighed about two hundred
pounds, and bade me melt it down as secretly as I was able. I went up to
the Angel, where I had my lodging, and could lock the door so as to be
free from interruption. There I built a little draught-furnace of
bricks, with a largish pot, shaped like an open dish, at the bottom of
it; and throwing the gold upon the coals, it gradually sank through and
dropped into the pan. While the furnace was working I never left off
watching how to annoy our enemies; and as their trenches were less than
a stone's-throw right below us, I was able to inflict considerable
damage on them with some useless missiles, [2] of which there were
several piles, forming the old munition of the castle. I chose a swivel
and a falconet, which were both a little damaged in the muzzle, and
filled them with the projectiles I have mentioned. When I fired my guns,
they hurtled down like mad, occasioning all sorts of unexpected mischief
in the trenches. Accordingly I kept these pieces always going at the
same time that the gold was being melted down; and a little before
vespers I noticed some one coming along the margin of the trench on
muleback. The mule was trotting very quickly, and the man was talking to
the soldiers in the trenches. I took the precaution of discharging my
artillery just before he came immediately opposite; and so, making a
good calculation, I hit my mark. One of the fragments struck him in the
face; the rest were scattered on the mule, which fell dead. A tremendous
uproar rose up from the trench; I opened fire with my other piece, doing
them great hurt. The man turned out to be the Prince of Orange, who was
carried through the trenches to a certain tavern in the neighbourhood,
whither in a short while all the chief folk of the army came together.

When Pope Clement heard what I had done, he sent at once to call for me,
and inquired into the circumstance. I related the whole, and added that
the man must have been of the greatest consequence, because the inn to