To make preparations for the great sortie that is to be combined with Orange’s attack from the lake, word of which has been brought into town by carrier pigeons, the guards had been weakened upon the outer ravelin, the great work just behind the moat running between the Kruys and the St. Jan’s gates, [[198]]and immediately facing Don Frederico’s headquarters.
This ravelin having been crumbled down and breached under the unremitting fire of the heavy Spanish batteries; during the night the moat had been quickly bridged by pontoons thrown across by Vargas. Crossing this the veterans of Romero, De Billy and Vargas had ensconced themselves quietly at the foot of the ravelin.
Then taking breath, their advance had crawled up the breaches and before the Dutch sentinels, worn out with watching, fatigue and hunger, knew what they were about, had killed a good many of them and got possession of the work the Spaniards think the key to the town.
Besides this, they have gained the great block house at the Kruys gate, and Romero has captured the Jan’s gate.
“Cut in! Slay, kill—Haarlem is ours!” is the cry that reaches Don Frederico’s happy ears as he orders up reinforcements to make his success certain.
But even as the Spaniards spring over the ravelin to drop down right into Haarlem, they find they have not captured it.
As the batteries, week after week, have crumbled the ravelin, the besieged, chiefly the women and children, have erected directly behind it a great demi-lune of sandbags and earth, stronger against cannon and quite as difficult of escalade as the ravelin. This, masked from sight, is unknown to the Spanish until they mount the first fortification to see the second confronting them.
As Alva’s soldiers look on it, this demi-lune is being manned by the hastily alarmed people of the neighboring streets. A moment after they are joined by the German troops of the garrison—with a shout, the Spaniards come on—the fight begins.
The weakest spot in Haarlem wall is that immediately next the block house of the Kruys gate, the one now held by Vargas’s veterans. This intrenchment is held by Kenau and her lady militia. This has been their post of honor, and Ripperda, commander of the city, knows that into no hands (and he has veterans of many wars, and eight hundred gallant Scotchmen now reduced to one-half, and the French company under [[199]]Courie) could he so well trust this point of weakness as to those unto whom he has given it.
For these women are fighting not only for all that manhood values, but in addition to all that their safety from defilement. Every one of them, maid, wife or widow, shudders as she thinks of Spanish mercy in a stormed town to hapless womanhood.