Face to face with them stood the republican host, drawn up in great solid
squares of infantry, their standards waving above each closely planted
clump of pikemen, with the musketeers fringing their skirts, while the
iron-clad ponderous cavalry of Count Lewis and Marcellus Bax, in black
casque and, corslet, were in front, restlessly expecting the signal for
the onset. The volunteers of high rank who were then serving on the
staff of the stadholder--the Duke of Holstein, the Prince of Anhalt, two
young Counts Solms, and others--had been invited and even urged to
abandon the field while there was yet time for setting them on board the
fleet. Especially it was thought desirable that young Frederic Henry,
a mere boy, on whom the hopes of the Orange-Nassau house would rest if
Maurice fell in the conflict, should be spared the fate which seemed
hanging over the commonwealth and her defenders. But the son of William
the Silent implored his brother with clasped hands not to send him from
his side at that moment, so that Maurice granted his prayer, and caused
him to be provided with a complete suit of armour. Thus in company with
young Coligny--a lad of his own age, and like himself a grandson of the
great admiral--the youth who was one day to play so noble a part on the
stage of the world's affairs was now to be engaged in his first great
passage of arms. No one left the field but Sir Robert Sidney, who had
come over from Ostend, from irrepressible curiosity to witness the
arrangements, but who would obviously have been guilty of unpardonable
negligence had he been absent at such a crisis from the important post of
which he was governor for the queen.

The arena of the conflict seemed elaborately prepared by the hand of
nature. The hard, level, sandy beach, swept clean and smooth by the
ceaseless action of the tides, stretched out far as the eye could reach
in one long, bold, monotonous line. Like the whole coast of Flanders and
of Holland, it seemed drawn by a geometrical rule, not a cape, cove, or