"This is a rare enterprise that Captain Heraugière has proposed to the prince," he said, "and promises well for success. It is to be kept a profound secret, and a few only will know aught of it until it is executed. Heraugière is of course to have command of the party which is to be hidden in the barge, and is to pick out eighty men from the garrisons of Gorcum and Lowesteyn. He has begged that you shall be of the party, as he says that the whole matter was in the first case suggested to him by you. The rest of the men and officers will be Dutch." A fortnight later, on the 22nd of February, Sir Francis Vere on his return from the Hague, where Prince Maurice now was, told Lionel that all was arranged. The message had come down from Van de Berg that the hiding place was constructed. They were to join Heraugière the next day. On the 24th of February the little party started. Heraugière had chosen young, active, and daring men. With him were Captains Logier and Fervet, and Lieutenant Held. They embarked on board a vessel, and were landed near the mouth of the Mark, as De Berg was this time going to carry the peat up the river instead of down, fearing that the passage of seventy men through the country would attract attention. The same night Prince Maurice, Sir Francis Vere, Count Hohenlohe, and other officers sailed to Willemstad, their destination having been kept a strict secret from all but those engaged in the enterprise. Six hundred English troops, eight hundred Dutch, and three hundred cavalry had been drawn from different garrisons, and were also to land at Willemstad. When Heraugière's party arrived at the point agreed on at eleven o'clock at night, Van de Berg was not there, nor was the barge; and angry and alarmed at his absence they searched about for him for hours, and at last found him in the village of Terheyde. He made the excuse that he had overslept himself, and that he was afraid the plot had been discovered. As everything depended upon his co-operation, Heraugière abstained from the angry reproaches which the strange conduct of the man had excited; and as it was now too late to do anything that night, a meeting was arranged for the following evening, and a message was despatched to the prince telling him that the expedition was postponed for a day. On their return, the men all gave free vent to their indignation. "I have no doubt," Heraugière said, "that the fellow has turned coward now that the time has come to face the danger. It is one thing to talk about a matter as long as it is far distant, but another to look it in the face when it is close at hand. I do not believe that he will come to-morrow." "If he does not he will deserve hanging," Captain Logier said; "after all the trouble he has given in getting the troops together, and after bringing the prince himself over."