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Updated: June 5, 2025
The Protestant Elizabeth of England gave help and support to the Protestant Stadtholder Maurice, and many of her fighting men carried pike or arquebus at the sack of Cadiz, fought at Nieuport and Ostend, or served the guns in the great sea-fight off Gibraltar that, in 1607, broke the power of Spain.
Maitre Leroux carried a brace of huge pistols in his holsters, while Nigel had a sword and a light arquebus, both their attendants being also armed; so that they were well able to defend themselves against any small party of marauders such as infested the roads in the neighbourhood of the capital. "We must make but a short stage to-day," said Maitre Leroux.
'He struck me from behind, he said; 'my vest of mail saved me; he is dead. The more for us! I liked not Alvaro's face, and looked to my dagger lest to-morrow he should say 'The more for me. . . . "That third night Alvaro and I for the last time descended the black shaft. Well watched we each the other. He had both dagger and arquebus, and I my hand petronel and dagger too.
Every assailant who tried to throw his fagot into the moat became a mark for arquebus or pistol, and the weapons that had so lately hung over the hearth at Nid de Merle were now aimed again and again at the heads and corslets of Guisards, with something of the same exulting excitement as, only higher, more engrossing, and fiercer than, that with which the lads had taken aim at a wolf, or ridden after a fox.
One standing near now raised his arquebus; but before he could fire, he too was pierced by two arrows, and fell dead. The admiral himself caught up the arquebus, and shot the man who had first fired.
Never was a merrier Christmas morning in Flanders. There should be an end now to the forays through the country of those red-coated English pikemen, those hard-riding, hard-drinking troopers of Germany and, Holland, with the French and Scotch arquebus men, and terrible Zeeland sailors who had for years swept out of Ostend, at any convenient opportunity, to harry the whole province.
"We, on our part, would have a watch set on the top of this hill behind us; at a spot where the hill on which the beacon was placed would be visible. Then at night the fire, and by day the smoke would serve as a warning. Our watchman would, at once, fire an arquebus and light another beacon; which would be the signal for all within reach to come here, as quickly as possible.
Taking up the arquebus he looked at the priming, and made his way cautiously to the house. It is necessary to hark back a little now to the moment when Torquato Trotto, having given his instructions to Piero, went into the house. The stairway was empty, for both I and my charge were with La Marmotte, and the Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat.
He had gone back to his birthplace, in Biscay; thence he entered the service of the Cardinal of Burgos; then the cardinal's brother had taken him to the war, and he had served with the Spanish troops; at the battle of St. Quentiny his leg had been shattered by an arquebus ball. So far his recital was the counterpart of the one already heard by the judges from the other man.
The page, without a word, placed his arquebus to the admiral's forehead and shot him dead. So perished a bold and brilliant soldier, and a most unscrupulous politician. Whether the cause of his murder was mere envy on the part of the commissary at having lost a splendid opportunity for prize-money, or hatred to an ancient Leaguer thus turned renegade, it is fruitless now to enquire.
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