At the period of which we speak Ostend was progressively recovering from the fatal effects of a protracted siege, conducted by the Spaniards under Spinola, which had lasted for the space of three years; and upon the last day of the siege it was as uncertain as upon the first whether it would be captured by the Spaniards or not; or to which side victory finally would belong. The account of the loss of lives on the part of the besiegers and the besieged in this disastrous siege, is truly most formidable; it is computed that fifteen thousand of the latter perished; some slain by the sword of war, others fell by pestilence, and others perished the victims of the marshy climate of Ostend, from fatigue of the siege, the sorties, engagements, and fire of the enemy; while the Spaniards suffered the severe loss of upwards of seventy-eight thousand men.[13]
But we must now return to the detail of our voyagers, who having ate a hearty supper at their hotel, soon retired to repose in their respective chambers. Oh, how refreshing to the wearied spirit is the renovating balm of sleep; and how invigorating is a night's undisturbed repose! And how great, how unspeakable the change, and how joyful the contrast, from the almost certain expectancy of death by a watery grave, it is upon the succeeding morning to awake, as if from the tomb, upon a bed of down, and to hail the blessed cheering light of morning! Who could forbear to raise the adoring eye and the grateful heart to heaven, for an escape so unexpected and providential! All this they deeply and devoutly felt.
The morning succeeding their preservation, while they were actively and busily occupied in the important despatch of an incomparable breakfast, and the fellow-sufferers were passing a high and well deserved eulogium on some excellent Malines ham, to their great surprise and dismay a party of Gens d'Armes, as has been before remarked, arrived at their hotel, when (the three of them) the colonel, his servant, and Doctor M'Kenzie, were arrested under suspicion of being spies, and were thrown into prison.
"This is somewhat too hard," observed Doctor M'Kenzie, "not to be allowed to swallow our rations of excellent ham! A few hours ago to have escaped the whirlpool of Charybdis, and this morn to be shipwrecked on the rock of Scylla! The sea was well nigh swallowing us yesterday, and to-day we are to be immured in prison on suspicion of being spies;
'Dextrum Scylla latus, lævum implacata Charybdis Obsidet.'"
"Yes, my Reverend Friend," replied the colonel, "this is all but too true, we have had our share of suffering indeed; but while we feel it as men, let us also bear it like men, and hope the best! For my own lot I care not; to me death, not captivity, would be welcome!"
To account for this arrest we must apprise our readers that Marshal de Rantzau had made a desperate attempt with only two thousand French troops, a very few years previous to the period of which we now speak. But eventually the French force was put to flight, with the loss of twelve hundred brave and gallant men, who fatally fell in this rash attempt. And this event it was which caused such alertness and suspicion regarding strangers to be adopted by the government and garrison of Ostend.
The prisoners were marched along under a strong escort of the Gens d'Armes, and were conducted to the chief prison, and handed over to the surveillance of the head gaoler, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, who, by the way, happened to be a countryman of the Reverend Doctor M'Kenzie. At that period the janitor of a gaol did not enjoy the present high diplomatique distinction of being termed the governor or warder of a grated citadel.
While Mr. Phelim O'Neale was showing his prisoners the apartments allotted to them, he said, addressing the Reverend Clerk:—"I know that your Riverence is my countryman, and perhaps I know still more; I therefore feel all the respect and affection which I ought to do for a countryman in a foreign land. My life has been a varied and changeable one, and it may perchance beguile away an hour of captivity, that you should deign to listen to my story. Och, I was once a roving and untamable bird, wild as the haggard-hawk[14] of my native hills, that is ever on the excursive wing; and like to it, I was not to be tamed at all; but now, in troth, I am tame enough, any how! For the present I shall only say, that from peculiar and urgent circumstances I was compelled to leave my native land. I embarked from the bay of Tyrconnel in Ireland, in a vessel bound for Virginia; at sea I was taken prisoner by the fleet and squadron of Marshal de Rantzau; and with the force of his Highness I was landed at this good city, ould Ostind. Well here I was a wandering raw recruit on Flemish ground, an unknown exile and outcast, forsaken by all, from Dan to Beersheba! Howsomdever, I was shortly thrown in the way of my brave countryman, Count Dillon, whom I knew when I was a gossoon. He was a lieutenant curnell, sarving under the marshal; and he was not slow in discovering that I possessed both cuteness and genus.—Vous avez razon mun infant! he would often say to me, (he had lived for years in France,) and yit, by my blessed sowl, I often thought that his honourable worship himself had no razon at all, at all!"
"Fie, fie! Mr. Phelim O'Neale; swear not at all! it is a work of supererogation for selling yourself, both body and soul, gratis to the infernal power! Let me hear no more of it."