at the gate. The lieutenant and suttler who had thus overreached that
great master of dissimulation; Alexander Farnese; were at the same time
unbound by their comrades, and rescued from the fate intended for them.

Notwithstanding the probability--when the portcullis fell--that the whole
party, had been deceived by an artifice of war the adventurers, who had
come so far, refused to abandon the enterprise, and continued an
impatient battery upon the gate. At last it was swung wide open, and
a furious onslaught was made by the garrison upon the Spaniards. There
was--a fierce brief struggle, and then the assailants were utterly
routed. Some were killed under the walls, while the rest were hunted
into the waves. Nearly every one of the, expedition (a thousand in
number) perished.

It had now become obvious to the Duke that his siege must be raised.
The days were gone when the walls of Dutch towns seemed to melt before
the first scornful glance of the Spanish invader; and when a summons
meant a surrender, and a surrender a massacre. Now, strong in the
feeling of independence, and supported by the courage and endurance of
their English allies, the Hollanders had learned to humble the pride of
Spain as it had never been humbled before. The hero of a hundred battle-
fields, the inventive and brilliant conqueror of Antwerp, seemed in the
deplorable issue of the English invasion to have lost all his genius, all
his fortune. A cloud had fallen upon his fame, and he now saw himself;
at the head of the best army in Europe, compelled to retire, defeated and
humiliated, from the walls of Bergen. Winter was coming on apace; the
country was flooded; the storms in that-bleak region and inclement season
were incessant; and he was obliged to retreat before his army should be
drowned.