"The man who refuses, this day, to follow me," he said, "has never had
regard to his own honour, nor has God's cause or the King's ever been
dear to his heart."

His disheartened Spaniards and Italians--roused as by a magic trumpet--
eagerly demanded to be led against the rebels. And now from each end of
the dyke, the royalists were advancing toward the central position
occupied by the patriots. While Capizucca and Aquila were occupied at
Fort Victory, Parma was steadily cutting his way from Holy Cross to Saint
George. On foot, armed with sword and shield, and in coat of mail, and
marching at the head of his men along the dyke, surrounded by Bevilacqua,
Bentivoglio, Manriquez, Sforza, and other officers of historic name and
distinguished courage, now upon the summit of the causeway, now on its
shelving banks, now breast-high in the waters, through which lay the
perilous path, contending at every inch with the scattered bands of the
patriots, who slowly retired to their entrenched camp, and with the
Antwerp and Zeeland vessels, whose balls tore through the royalist ranks,
the General at last reached Saint George. On the preservation of that
post depended the whole fortune of the day, for Parma had already
received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade--now Fort Victory--
had been regained. He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-
sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted
a battery to play point-blank at the enemy's entrenchments. Here the
final issue was to be made.

The patriots and Spaniards were thus all enclosed in the mile-long space
between St. George and the Palisade. Upon that narrow strip of earth,
scarce six paces in width, more than five thousand men met in mortal
combat--a narrow arena for so many gladiators, hemmed in on both sides by