into the air all the soldiers who had just entered it so triumphantly.
This was the turning point. The retreat was sounded, and the Spaniards
fled to their camp, leaving at least three hundred dead beneath the
walls. Thus was a second assault, made by an overwhelming force and led
by the most accomplished generals of Spain, signally and gloriously
repelled by the plain burghers of Harlem.

It became now almost evident that the city could be taken neither by
regular approaches nor by sudden attack. It was therefore resolved
that it should be reduced by famine. Still, as the winter wore on, the
immense army without the walls were as great sufferers by that scourge as
the population within. The soldiers fell in heaps before the diseases
engendered by intense cold and insufficient food, for, as usual in such
sieges, these deaths far outnumbered those inflicted by the enemy's hand.
The sufferings inside the city necessarily increased day by day, the
whole population being put on a strict allowance of food. Their supplies
were daily diminishing, and with the approach of the spring and the
thawing of the ice on the lake, there was danger that they would be
entirely cut off. If the possession of the water were lost, they must
yield or starve; and they doubted whether the Prince would be able to
organize a fleet. The gaunt spectre of Famine already rose before them
with a menace which could not be misunderstood. In their misery they
longed for the assaults of the Spaniards, that they might look in the
face of a less formidable foe. They paraded the ramparts daily, with
drums beating, colors flying, taunting the besiegers to renewed attempts.
To inflame the religious animosity of their antagonists, they attired
themselves in the splendid, gold-embroidered vestments of the priests,
which they took from the churches, and moved about in mock procession,
bearing aloft images bedizened in ecclesiastical finery, relics, and
other symbols, sacred in Catholic eyes, which they afterwards hurled from