momentary panic, the besiegers again rushed to the attack. The battle
raged. Six hundred and seventy officers, commissioned or non-
commissioned, had already fallen, more than half mortally wounded. Four
thousand royalists, horribly mutilated, lay on the ground. It was time
that the day's work should be finished, for Maastricht was not to be
carried upon that occasion. The best and bravest of the surviving
officers besought Parma to put an end to the carnage by recalling the
troops; but the gladiator heart of the commander was heated, not
softened, by the savage spectacle. "Go back to the breach," he cried,
"and tell the soldiers that Alexander is coming to lead them into the
city in triumph, or to perish with his comrades." He rushed forward
with the fury which had marked him when he boarded Mustapha's galley at
Lepanto; but all the generals who were near him threw themselves upon his
path, and implored him to desist from such insensate rashness. Their
expostulations would have probably been in vain, had not his confidential
friend, Serbelloni, interposed with something like paternal authority,
reminding him of the strict commands contained in his Majesty's recent
letters, that the Governor-General, to whom so much was entrusted, should
refrain, on pain of the royal displeasure, from exposing his life like a
common fighter.

Alexander reluctantly gave the signal of recal at last, and accepted the
defeat. For the future he determined to rely more upon the sapper and
miner, and less upon the superiority of veterans to townsmen and rustics
in open fight. Sure to carry the city at last, according to line and
rule, determined to pass the whole summer beneath the walls, rather
than abandon his purpose, he calmly proceeded to complete his
circumvallations. A chain of eleven forts upon the left, and five upon
the right side of the Meuse, the whole connected by a continuous wall,
afforded him perfect security against interruptions, and allowed him to