"Depend upon it," I said, after hearing this explanation, "since such is our situation and that of the enemy, the Catholics I have seen are thrown forward to gain possession of some place in the heart of our position. But I will soon bring you farther intelligence if possible; and, in the mean time, were it not better to send off at once a messenger to the prince and the admiral, to inform them of what has been already observed, and of the direction which the Catholics are taking?" Montgomery agreed immediately to do so, and in less than an hour after I was once more in the saddle, and advancing with a force sufficient for all that I proposed towards the villages in which I calculated the enemy would lodge that night. I need not enter into all the particulars of my expedition: suffice it to say, that about one o'clock in the morning I found forty or fifty poor peasants in a barn not far from the village, who had been driven out of their habitations by the enemy, on account of adhering to the Protestant faith, and who thought themselves not a little fortunate to have escaped with only a few strokes from the staff of a lance to make them give up their dwellings more quickly to the royal troops. I learned little from them, however, except that the commander of the Catholics lodged in one of the houses at the end of the village; and thinking that it would be an excellent consummation if I could carry him off, I bent my way thither, guided by one of the young labourers. Before we came near, however, I caused my men either to strip off their white cassocks altogether, or, when they were lined with any other colour, to turn them inside out, in order, as far as possible, to escape attention. I did not succeed, however, so well this time as I had done before. There were men on watch at both sides of the house; and though we approached somewhat near without being seen, we were at length challenged in a loud voice. The sentry would not let the false word I gave pass current, but instantly fired his arquebus; and, as had been arranged before, while my arquebusiers remained drawn up in a line to support us, I dismounted with my men-at-arms, and rushed forward to attack the house. Moric Endem shot the unfortunate sentry through the head with a pistol; the door and one of the windows were burst open in a moment, and we poured into the lower rooms, in which we found ten or twelve men who had been sleeping in their arms, on the floor. Taken by surprise, and in confusion, their resistance was not very great, but it was sufficient to give time for the commander himself to make his escape out of one of the back windows in his shirt.