"Was a parting as between friends for life! The first had been the laughing farewell of pleasant acquaintance. But now, ere she bade adieu to the gallant preserver of her life, she shred a tress of her silken hair, still wet with the waters of the Dyle, which she entreated him to keep for her sake. In return, he placed upon her finger the ruby presented to him by the Doge of Venice, bearing the arms of the republic engraved on the setting; telling her that chance had enabled him to confer an obligation on the governor of the Netherlands; and that, in any strait or peril, that signet, dispatched in his name to Don John of Austria, would command his protection." "As I live, a choice romance!--almost worthy the pages of our matchless Boccaccio!" cried the Italian. "A thousand pities but that the whole batch of Orangeists had been carried down the Dyle!--However, the enemy's lines lie between them. They will meet no more. The Calvinist colonel has doubtless his daughter under lock and key; and his highness has too much work cut out for him by his rebels, to have time for peeping through the keyhole.--So now, good-night.--For love-tales are apt to beget drowsiness; and i'faith we must be a-foot by break of day." And having betaken himself to the chamber provided for him, Ottavio Gonzaga lost not an hour or a syllable, in transcribing all he had learned from the Spanish aide-de-camp; that the state of mind and feeling of the young viceroy might be speedily laid open to the full and uncongenial investigation of his royal brother of the Escurial. Part II. A fortnight afterwards, was fought that famous battle of Gembloux, which added a new branch to the laurels of Don John of Austria; and constitutes a link of the radiant chain of military glories which binds the admiration of Europe to the soil of one of the obscurest of its countries!--Gembloux, Ramillies, Nivelle, Waterloo, lie within the circuit of a morning's journey, as well as within the circle of eternal renown. By this brilliant triumph of the royalists, six thousand men-at-arms, their standards, banners, and artillery, were lost to the States. The cavalry of Spain, under the command of Ottavio Gonzaga, performed prodigies of valour; and the vanguard, under that of Gaspardo Nignio, equally distinguished itself. But the heat of the action fell upon the main body of the army, which had marched from Namur under the command of Don John; being composed of the Italian reinforcements dispatched to him from Parma by desire of the Pope, under the command of his nephew, Prince Alexander Farnese.