There he stood at bay leaning his back against a little fir tree that could hardly support his weight, and wiping, with the ragged ends of his sash, the cold sweat from his brow and the blood from his sword.
The enemy soon discovered him—there was half a regiment of them—he gathered all his strength to straighten his body that he might meet them standing.
Another shot struck him, he fell on his knees, still wielding his sword—one against many; one officer cried out to spare him, for it was the Stadtholder, but even as he spoke Aremberg fell, shot through the throat, sinking on his own sword which broke and fell beneath him.
They picked him up and wrapped him in a cloak, and carried him through the morass filled with his dead soldiers to the victorious Louis of Nassau.
That young general was flushed with hope; he had seen the veteran troops of Spain go down before the onslaught of the "beggars" and the Nassau arms wave above the field of victory.
The sun was only just beginning to slant in the heavens, and there was not one of all the boastful hosts of that morning to fire a shot or raise a sword for Spain.
When the dead general was laid at his feet, Louis uncovered.
"He should have been spared," he said, in a moved voice.
They lifted up the mantle and Louis looked down at the fiery Stadtholder now mangled with shot and sword.
"He was too good to be Alva's pawn," he said. "Such bravery went ill with such a cause."