the defenders were slain as fast as they showed themselves above their
bulwarks. The ditch was crossed, the breastwork carried at, a single
determined charge. The rebels made little resistance, but fled as soon
as the enemy entered their fort. It was a hunt, not a battle. Hundreds
were stretched dead in the camp; hundreds were driven into the Scheld;
six or eight hundred took refuge in a farm-house; but De Beauvoir's men
set fire to the building, and every rebel who had entered it was burned
alive or shot. No quarter was given. Hardly a man of the three thousand
who had held the fort escaped. The body of Tholouse was cut into a
hundred pieces. The Seigneur de Beauvoir had reason, in the brief letter
which gave an account of this exploit, to assure her Highness that there
were "some very valiant fellows in his little troop." Certainly they had
accomplished the enterprise entrusted to them with promptness, neatness,
and entire success. Of the great rebellious gathering, which every day
had seemed to grow more formidable, not a vestige was left.

This bloody drama had been enacted in full sight of Antwerp. The fight
had lasted from daybreak till ten o'clock in the forenoon, during the
whole of which period, the city ramparts looking towards Ostrawell, the
roofs of houses, the towers of churches had been swarming with eager
spectators. The sound of drum and trumpet, the rattle of musketry, the
shouts of victory, the despairing cries of the vanquished were heard by
thousands who deeply sympathized with the rebels thus enduring so
sanguinary a chastisement. In Antwerp there were forty thousand people
opposed to the Church of Rome. Of this number the greater proportion
were Calvinists, and of these Calvinists there were thousands looking
down from the battlements upon the disastrous fight.

The excitement soon became uncontrollable. Before ten o'clock vast
numbers of sectaries came pouring towards the Red Gate, which afforded