If he had been accustomed all his life to beds of down, he was as ready
now to lie in the trenches, with a cannon for his pillow, as the most
ironclad veteran in the ranks. He seemed to require neither sleep nor
food, and his reckless habit of exposing himself to unnecessary danger
was the subject of frequent animadversion on the part both of the
archdukes and of the Spanish Government.

It was however in his case a wise temerity. The veterans whom he
commanded needed no encouragement to daring deeds, but they required
conviction as to the valour and zeal of their new commander, and this
was afforded them in overflowing measure.

It is difficult to decide, after such a lapse of years, as to how much of
the long series of daily details out of which this famous siege was
compounded deserves to be recorded. It is not probable that for military
history many of the incidents have retained vital importance. The world
rang, at the beginning of the operations, with the skill and inventive
talent of Targone, Giustiniani, and other Italian engineers, artificers,
and pyrotechnists, and there were great expectations conceived of the
effects to be produced by their audacious and original devices. But time
wore on. Pompey's famous floating battery would not float, his moving
monster battery would not move. With the one; the subtle Italian had
intended to close up the Gullet to the States' fleets. It was to rest on
the bottom at low water at the harbour's mouth, to rise majestically with
the flood, and to be ever ready with a formidable broadside of fifty
pounders against all comers. But the wild waves and tempests of the
North Sea soon swept the ponderous toy into space, before it had fired a
gun. The gigantic chariot, on which a moveable fort was constructed, was
still more portentous upon paper than the battery. It was directed
against that republican work, defending the Gullet, which was called in