_D'Am._ Soldier, what news? We heard a rumour of a blow you gave The enemy.[145] _Bor._ 'Tis very true, my lord. _Bel._ Canst thou relate it? _Bor._ Yes. _D'Am._ I prithee do. _Bor._ The enemy, defeated of a fair Advantage by a flatt'ring stratagem, Plants all the artillery against the town; Whose thunder and lightning made our bulwarks shake, And threatened in that terrible report The storm wherewith they meant to second it. The assault was general. But, for the place That promised most advantage to be forced, The pride of all their army was drawn forth And equally divided into front And rear. They marched, and coming to a stand, Ready to pass our channel at an ebb, We advised it for our safest course, to draw Our sluices up and mak't impassable. Our governor opposed and suffered them To charge us home e'en to the rampier's foot. But when their front was forcing up our breach At push o' pike, then did his policy Let go the sluices, and tripped up the heels Of the whole body of their troop that stood Within the violent current of the stream. Their front, beleaguered 'twixt the water and The town, seeing the flood was grown too deep To promise them a safe retreat, exposed The force of all their spirits (like the last Expiring gasp of a strong-hearted man) Upon the hazard of one charge, but were Oppressed, and fell. The rest that could not swim Were only drowned; but those that thought to 'scape By swimming, were by murderers that flanked The level of the flood, both drowned and slain. _D'Am._ Now, by my soul, soldier, a brave service. _Mont._ O what became of my dear Charlemont? _Bor._ Walking next day upon the fatal shore, Among the slaughtered bodies of their men Which the full-stomached sea had cast upon The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light Upon a face, whose favour[146] when it lived, My astonished mind informed me I had seen. He lay in's armour, as if that had been His coffin; and the weeping sea, like one Whose milder temper doth lament the death Of him whom in his rage he slew, runs up The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheek, Goes back again, and forces up the sands To bury him, and every time it parts Sheds tears upon him, till at last (as if It could no longer endure to see the man Whom it had slain, yet loth to leave him) with A kind of unresolved unwilling pace, Winding her waves one in another, like A man that folds his arms or wrings his hands For grief, ebbed from the body, and descends As if it would sink down into the earth, And hide itself for shame of such a deed.[147] _D'Am._ And, soldier, who was this? _Mont._ O Charlemont! _Bor._ Your fear hath told you that, whereof my grief Was loth to be the messenger. _Cast._ O God! [_Exit._ _D'Am._ Charlemont drowned! Why how could that be, since It was the adverse party that received The overthrow?