"Yes, he has been a captain in the prince's service fully three years," the sailor said; "and fought nobly at Alkmaar, at the naval battle on the Zuider Zee, and in the sea fight when we drove Romero's fleet back in Bergen. He stands very high in the confidence of the prince, but I do not think he is in our service now. He is often with the prince, but I believe he comes and goes between England and Holland, and is, men say, the messenger by whom private communications between the queen of England and the prince are chiefly carried." "He is young to have such confidence reposed in him," the countess said. "Yes, he is young," Captain Enkin replied. "Not, I suppose, beyond seven or eight and twenty. He was a captain and high in the prince's confidence when I first knew him three years ago, so he must surely have been four or five and twenty then; and yet, indeed, now you speak of it, methinks he is greatly bigger now than he was then. I do not think he was much taller than I am, and now he tops me by nigh a head. But I must surely be mistaken as to that, for the prince would scarcely place his confidence in a mere lad." The countess made no reply, though she exchanged a quiet smile with her daughter. They knew that Ned could not be much more than twenty. He was, he had said, about three years older than Gertrude, and she had passed seventeen but by a few months. Ned, on returning to shore, tied up the boat, and then proceeded to the palace of the governor. A servant was holding a horse at the door. "The governor ordered this horse to be ready and saddled for you, sir, when you arrived, and begged you to join him at once in the marketplace, where he is telling off the troops to their various stations." Leaping on the horse, Ned rode to the marketplace, and at once placed himself under orders of the governor. "There is nothing much for you to do at present," Champagny said. "The troops are all in their places, and we are ready when they deliver the assault." It was not until eleven o'clock that the Spaniards advanced to the attack--3000 of them, under their Eletto, by the street of St. Michael; the remainder with the Germans, commanded by Romero, by that of St. George. No sooner did the compact masses approach the barricades than the Walloons, who had been so loud in their boasts of valour, and had insisted upon having the post of danger, broke and fled, their commander, Havre, at their head; and the Spaniards, springing over the ramparts, poured into the streets.