Now, you men of Holland, look to your laurels, for the last bolt, but also the strongest, needs to be drawn back. Down there in the morning mist lies Fort Liefkenhoek. Down there in the morning mist lies Fort Lillo. Now, you beggars, take up your weapons, whoever among you still has the use of his hands and his feet. Beggars' luck! Beggars' luck! All was in readiness in Fort Liefkenhoek, for the commander of the fort had had time enough to give out his orders well in advance. Captain Jeronimo had woken him at two o'clock in the morning. "Well, what is it?" the colonel had asked, and the old veteran had shrugged his shoulders and said: "It may be a mutiny at Fort Callao, it may be an uprising in Antwerp, but I'd like you to come to the battlements anyway, sir." Reluctantly the commander had appeared on the south-eastern bastion of his fort and listened for a long time. A quarter of an hour later the drummer had once again summoned the garrison to the walls, and an hour later the captain had said: "If I were you, sir, I'd have all of tonight's sentries shot." How long had the cannon fire lasted along the Scheldt? It was no wonder that everything for the reception of the black galley had been best prepared at Fort Liefkenhoek! Captain Jeronimo paced darkly up and down before his company and, as the firing came nearer, he glowered all the more as was his wont. He had played the game so long that he had grown weary of it--no, not weary!--, it had become as indifferent to him as breathing. So Captain Jeronimo had merely shrugged his shoulders when a messenger on horseback had ridden overland from Fort Pearl bringing the first detailed account of what had happened on the river near Antwerp. How grimly his comrades had borne themselves, but the old soldier who had served under the Dukes of Alba, Requesens and Farnese had merely turned his back on the messenger and walked back to his company. "And do they still think they can force this people into compliance with them?" he mumbled to himself. "How long already have they been burying the cream of Spain's youth, the core of its strength in this muddy ground? I pity my poor fatherland." The cannon in front of Kruisschanze had interrupted his monologue. In the morning mist it was starting to softly snow. It was now no longer possible to see three feet ahead of one. "Yes, yes," the old soldier mumbled to himself, "fire blindly at them! Listen. There it is again, that damned tune, the funeral dirge for the might and land of Spain. Save your powder. You'll not destroy them with it. Yes, that's right, shoot. Their song sounds all the clearer for it! We all of us know it off by heart now." Through the cannon fire and the blare of Dutch trumpets Captain Jeronimo hummed to himself: I am a prince of Orange, Unharmed up until now, Who has the king of Spain Always allowed his due.