Now it is repeated and repeated again and again: it echoes from street to street; it gains in volume and in power until from end to end of the city it seems to converge toward the Vridachmart in one huge, all dominating wave of sound: "_Sauve qui peut!_" and the tramp of running feet, the calls and cries drown the clash of lance and pike. Suddenly the bowmen of the Orangists scale the low cemetery wall as one man and their defence is turned into a vigorous onslaught: the cavalry is forced back upon the market square, they catch up the cry: "_Sauve qui peut_! They are on us! _Sauve qui peut!_" They break their ranks--a panic hath seized them--their retreat becomes a rout. The Orangists are all over the cemetery wall now: they charge with halberd and pike and force the Spaniards and Walloons back and back into the narrow streets which debouch upon the Schelde. Some are able to escape over the Ketel Brüghe, but two entire companies of Spanish infantry and a whole squadron of cavalry are--so Messire Vaernewyck avers--pushed into the river where they perish to the last man. II At this hour all is confusion. The picture which the mind conjures up of the stricken city is a blurred mass of pikes and lances, of muskets and crossbows, of Spaniards and Walloons and Flemings, of ragged doublets and plumed hats--a medley of sounds: of arrows whizzing with a long whistling sound through the air, of the crash of muskets and clash of lance against lance, the appeal of those who are afraid and the groans of those who are dying--of falling timber and sizzling woodwork, and crumbling masonry, and through it all the awful cry of "_Sauve qui peut!_" and the sound of the tocsin weirdly calling through the fast gathering night. And amidst this helter-skelter and confusion, the Duke of Alva upon his black charger--untiring, grim, terrible--tries by commands, cajoleries, threats, to rally those who flee. But the voice which erstwhile had the power to make the stoutest heart quake had none over the poltroon. He shouts and admonishes and threatens in vain. They run and run--cavalry, infantry, halbertmen and lancers--the flower of the Spanish force sent to subdue the Netherlands--they run; and in the general vortex of fleeing cavalry the Duke is engulfed too, and he is carried along as far as the Ketel Brüghe, where he tries to make a stand. His doublet and hose are covered with mud and grime; his mantle is torn, his hat has fallen off his head and his white hair floats around his face which is as pale as death. "Cowards!" he cries with fierce and maddened rage: "would you fly before such rabble?" But his voice has lost its magic; they do not heed him--they fly--past him and over the bridge to the safety of Het Spanjaard’s Kasteel.