forts, a third party being employed in pitching the tents and forming a camp just beyond them. All night long a vigilant watch was kept, as it was very possible that the Spaniards might attempt to surprise the city in the hopes of capturing it at once, and saving themselves from the annoyance and sufferings of a protracted siege. Young Albert and Berthold together went the rounds to see that the sentries were at their posts and wide awake, and that no post was left without a sufficient guard. No experienced officers could have been more on the alert. More than once they met the commandant, who, entrusting nothing of importance to others, was himself going the rounds.

He gave the lads some words of approval. “While the young ones show such zeal I feel confident that we shall keep the foe in check till they are compelled ignominiously to retreat,” he observed.

For several days the citizens beheld the foreign troops gathering round them, bringing their batteries closer to the walls, till Leyden was invested by no less than sixty-two redoubts, while fresh troops were seen coming in to swell the ranks of the besiegers. The city was now placed on a strict allowance of food, all the provisions having been purchased by the authorities, with an allowance of half a pound of meat, half a pound of bread allotted to each full-grown man, and to the rest in due proportion. At length the soldiers, and even some of the burghers began to murmur at their own inactivity; to give them confidence the commandant allowed a sortie to be made, promising a reward to each man who brought in the head of a Spaniard. The men of Leyden waited till nightfall, having previously carefully surveyed the point it was proposed to attack. All was still in the city, the Spaniards might have supposed that the besieged were sleeping, when suddenly the gate at which the sortie was to be made was thrown open, three hundred men eager for the fray noiselessly rushed out, not a word was spoken, not a shout raised till they were upon their foe. The Spaniards, the work of the day over, had piled their arms, and had scarcely time to fall into their ranks before their enemies were upon them; though a score or more fell yet they were too well disciplined to remain long in a state of confusion, and the officer leading the sortie deemed it prudent to call back his men. They returned without the loss of one of their number, bringing back at least a dozen Spanish heads, such was the savage commencement of the struggle. Night after night similar enterprises were undertaken, not always with the same result, though the Hollanders were invariably successful, so silently and well executed were all their sorties, but several brave men fell, 

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