Excellency; marching like this with such a leg as Julian's! I can assure you that a better soldier than he for dash and enterprise never came from our country. Pray thank him warmly for he richly deserves it." Only a few days later Julian was once more to the fore. Lumay, Count de la Mark, made an attempt to relieve Haarlem with a large force, but was beaten by the Spaniards, "Julian with his regiment," we are told by an anonymous eyewitness,[17] "leading the attack in front of every one." Encouraged by this victory, the Spaniards a week afterwards--the 20th of December, 1572--attempted to take the place by storm, but were unsuccessful. Julian was standing on a trench directing operations when a {104} musket-shot destroyed one of his eyes, but even that did not put him _hors de combat_ for long, for he writes to the Duke's secretary, Albernoz, on the 13th of the next month (January, 1573) from Amsterdam: "I have been impatiently expecting Illan's arrival, in order that I might go to the front, but if he comes not I am determined I will wait no longer, but will set out to-morrow; for I see that things are now going to begin in real earnest. I am pretty well, but not so well as I want to be to serve Don Fadrique; but I will do so with all my poor strength, standing or falling. He has sent me word that I must go and lodge in his quarters or he will burn mine down over my head. I will obey him in this as in all things, and although I know full well I shall not lack for dainties there, I will not spare you from sending me the other box of marmalade you promised me, as the one you sent is half gone already."