and fought within the bowels of the earth; again that fatal letter Y
advanced slowly under ground, stretching its deadly prongs nearer and
nearer up to the walls; and again the system of defences against a
relieving force was so perfectly established that Verdugo or Mansfield,
with what troops they could muster, seemed as powerless as the pewter
soldiers with which Maurice in his boyhood--not yet so long passed away
--was wont to puzzle over the problems which now practically engaged
his early manhood. Again, too, strangely enough, it is recorded that
Philip Nassau, at almost the same period of the siege as in that of
Gertruydenberg, signalized himself by a deed of drunken and superfluous
daring. This time the dinner party was at the quarters of Count Solms,
in honour of the Prince of Anhalt, where, after potations pottle deep,
Count Philip rushed from the dinner-table to the breach, not yet
thoroughly practicable, of the north ravelin, and, entirely without
armour, mounted pike in hand to the assault, proposing to carry the fort
by his own unaided exertions. Another officer, one Captain Vaillant,
still more beside himself than was the count, inspired him to these deeds
of valour by assuring him that the mine was to be sprung under the
ravelin that afternoon, and that it was a plot on the part of the Holland
boatmen to prevent the soldiers who had been working so hard and so long
in the mines from taking part in the honours of the assault. The count
was with difficulty brought off with a whole skin and put to bed. Yet
despite these disgraceful pranks there is no doubt that a better and
braver officer than he was hardly to be found even among the ten noble
Nassaus who at that moment were fighting for the cause of Dutch liberty--
fortunately with more sobriety than he at all times displayed. On the
following day, Prince Maurice, making a reconnoissance of the works with
his usual calmness, yet with the habitual contempt of personal danger
which made so singular a contrast with the cautious and painstaking
characteristics of his strategy, very narrowly escaped death. A shot