the dyke. Next to fort Stabroek--whence they issued--was the Palisade
Fort, nearly a mile removed, which the patriots had nearly carried, and
between which and St. George, another mile farther on, their whole force
was established.

The troops under Capizucca and Aquila soon reached the Palisade, and
attacked the besiegers, while the garrison, cheered by the unexpected
relief, made a vigorous sortie. There was a brief sharp contest, in
which many were killed on both sides; but at last the patriots fell back
upon their own entrenchments, and the fort was saved. Its name was
instantly changed to Fort Victory, and the royalists then prepared to
charge the fortified camp of the rebels, in the centre of which the dyke-
cutting operations were still in progress. At the same moment, from the
opposite end of the bulwark, a cry was heard along the whole line of the
dyke. From Fort Holy Cross, at the Scheldt end, the welcome intelligence
was suddenly communicated--as if by a magnetic impulse--that Alexander
was in the field!

It was true. Having been up half the night, as usual, keeping watch
along his bridge, where he was ever expecting a fatal attack, he had
retired for a few hours' rest in his camp at Beveren. Aroused at day-
break by the roar of the cannon, he had hastily thrown on his armour,
mounted his horse, and, at the head of two hundred pikemen, set forth for
the scene of action. Detained on the bridge by a detachment of the
Antwerp fleet, which had been ordered to make a diversion in that
quarter, he had, after beating off their vessels with his boat-artillery,
and charging Count Charles Mansfeld to heed well the brief injunction of
old Peter Ernest, made all the haste he could to the Kowenstyn. Arriving
at Fort Holy Cross, he learned from Mondragon how the day was going.
Three thousand rebels, he learned, were established on the dyke, Fort