for the name crime of heresy had been condemned to be torn to death by
horses. No one could be found to carry out the sentence. The soldiers
under La Motte's command broke into mutiny rather than permit themselves
to be used for such foul purposes; but the ardent young sergeant-major
came forward, tied the culprit by the arms and legs to two horses, and
himself whipped them to their work till it was duly accomplished. Was it
strange that in Philip's reign such energy should be rewarded by wealth,
rank, and honour? Was not such a labourer in the vineyard worthy of his
hire?

Still another eminent chieftain in the king's service disappeared at this
time--one who, although unscrupulous and mischievous enough in his day,
was however not stained by any suspicion of crimes like these. Count
Charles Mansfeld, tired of governing his decrepit parent Peter Ernest,
who, since the appointment of Fuentes, had lost all further chance of
governing the Netherlands, had now left Philip's service and gone to the
Turkish wars. For Amurath III., who had died in the early days of the
year, had been succeeded by a sultan as warlike as himself. Mahomet
III., having strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession, handsomely
buried them in cypress coffins by the side of their father, and having
subsequently sacked and drowned ten infant princes posthumously born to
Amurath, was at leisure to carry the war through Transylvania and
Hungary, up to the gates of Vienna, with renewed energy. The Turk,
who could enforce the strenuous rules of despotism by which all
secundogenitures and collateral claimants in the Ottoman family were
thus provided for, was a foe to be dealt with seriously. The power of
the Moslems at that day was a full match for the holy Roman Empire. The
days were far distant when the grim Turk's head was to become a mockery
and a show; and when a pagan empire, born of carnage and barbarism, was
to be kept alive in Europe when it was ready to die, by the collective