Then come clumps of trees to the left, and the Leprosy hospital; beyond that and all around circling the view are the tents and huts of Alva’s besieging army, cutting off this hapless town from friends and food.
To Chester’s ears come faintly on the morning breeze the clang of arms and moving companies and reliefs marching to the intrenchments.
Scattered over this scene are half a dozen windmills, and in front of them another erection, which makes Guy, soldier as he is, bite his lips.
It is a huge gallows upon which twenty bodies dangle, some by the necks, others by the feet.
And now, horror of horrors, the Spanish executioner, comes with his assistants quite early to his morning work. With him on hurdles are despairing wretches bound hand and foot. So getting to their business, they take down the dead to hang up the living who here, in sight of their friends and townsmen, shall occupy it with their dying agonies this day.
There is a cry of rage and anguish from the walls—these tortured ones are neighbors they had talked with the day before, prisoners taken during a sortie. And one woman screams: “Oh, merciful God, I see him—they are hanging up my Klaas!” and falls down moaning.
“We’ll do the same,” says Ripperda, “head for head! Call the Provost Captain!”
Soon some twenty Spaniards dangle from the walls in hideous reply to savage challenge.
Enraged by this Alva’s soldiers on the neighboring ravelin toss something into the Dutch demi-lune. [[202]]
It falls almost at the feet of Guy and Ripperda.