I had almost forgot to say that such pricks of conscience as beset me for permitting Volmar to escape a traitor's doom were stilled but a few days after he in secret quitted the city. His dead body was then discovered in the moat. Whether he was drowned in swimming, or removed (as he would have said) by the Spaniards for that he had failed them, I know not; only I believe in my heart that justice was done.
tailpiece to Third Part
Interim
Many a time and oft did my grandfather sing the praises of Prince Maurice of Nassau, whom he loved as a man, revered as a prince, and admired as a warrior. He told me that this stout and worthy Prince had studied the art of war from a boy up, and made many innovations in the practice thereof, for the which this age is to him much beholden; namely, he armed his horsemen with the carbine instead of the lance, and taught his soldiers the true use of the spade in siege work. Before his time men of war were wont to scorn that humble tool, and to look upon such as handled it as boors and rascals. My grandfather was with him in the three months' siege of Groningen, and beheld with admiration the work of his sappers and miners, how they drove mines in the shape of the letter Y beneath the walls of the city, and springing them one night, the north ravelin was blown up into the air with forty of the garrison, of whom one was cast alive and sound at his very feet in the besiegers' camp.
He told me too how in the summer of the year 1595, he came very near to losing his life. Prince Maurice had raised the siege of Grol, drawing back before the troops of Christopher Mondragon, a little old man of ninety-two, who had practised war from his youth, yet without receiving a wound. The Prince laid an ambush for this marvellous warrior, and set his cousin Philip to accomplish it; but the old man heard of what was toward, and took measures to counter it, so that when, about daybreak, Count Philip sent forward a handful of men to pounce upon the enemy's pickets, they saw themselves faced by a great number of Spanish horsemen drawn up in order. Whereof when tidings were conveyed to Count Philip, he donned his casque, and drew his sword, and putting spurs to his horse, galloped into the lane that divided him from the Spaniards, being followed at the first only by four of his nobles, and then by others of his horsemen, among whom my grandfather was one.
And when they were shut in that narrow pass, up started the Spaniards on the watery pasture lands on either hand, and fired their guns at them very hotly. Count Philip was shot through the body from a harquebus, which, by reason of its closeness, set his clothes a-fire, and the flames could not be quenched save by rolling him, all wounded as he was, among the sand and heather. When he sought to mount his horse and ride away, his strength failed him, and he fell to the ground and was taken prisoner and carried away dying. My grandfather, following in the charge, was thrown from his horse in the disorder and confusion, and only saved himself by crawling through the hedge, and swimming the river that ran by the margin of the field.
A matter of three months thereafter, my grandfather was with Sir Francis Vere when that valiant captain was sent by Prince Maurice to take the castle of Weerd. Upon Sir Francis demanding that the warden of the castle should yield it up, that doughty commander refused him with scorn, albeit he had no more than a score and six men at his back. But when Sir Francis opened upon the place with his artillery, these folk fell into a panic and laid open their gates. Their captain claimed the honours of war, but Sir Francis made answer that he should have no honours but halters for the stiff-necked simple men that had dared to defend their hovel against ordnance. Whereupon he made the six and twenty draw lots with black and white straws, and they that drew the white were immediately hanged, save only the thirteenth, to whom his life was given after that he had consented to do hangman's work upon his fellows. The noose was cast first about the neck of their captain, but the rope parting asunder, certain of Sir Francis' men held him under the water of the ditch until he was drowned. My grandfather fell out with Sir Francis upon this matter, deeming his truculency to be unworthy of a gentleman; and when the troops went into winter quarters, he took ship and returned to England, bearing a richly gilt sword, the gift of Prince Maurice.
He then took up his place in the Queen's Guard, but had accomplished scarce four months in the royal service when that adventure befell which follows next in order. It was known that King Philip was making ready a fleet of sixty sail to invade Ireland, and Sir Walter Raleigh was instant that the Queen's ministers should destroy that fleet in Spanish waters, saying that "expedition in a little is better than much too late." At that time the Spaniards were rejoicing in that Hawkins and Drake had come to grief in their enterprise against Panama, and were dead of a broken heart. Sir Walter's counsel was deemed good, and the Queen, enraged with the King of Spain for that he was abetting the Irish rebel Tyrone, fitted out ninety-six sail to convey 14,000 Englishmen to the harbour of Cadiz, setting over them Lord Admiral Howard and the Earl of Essex, and granting to Raleigh the command of twenty-two ships. Contrary winds delayed their setting forth, the which, as Sir Walter affirmed, caused him deeper grief than he ever felt for anything of this world. And Providence so fashioned it that my grandfather performed a hardy feat in Cadiz harbour a good month before Sir Walter set sail, as you shall now read.
THE FOURTH PART