H. C. Bailey

“ Yet there lay Alva, and the town was doomed if no help came, and, Breuthe taken, the country lay at his feet. All that was clear enough, and no less clear was it when Gaspar put it bluntly into words as we sat by the camp fire.
"And so nought is possible, think you?" said I at last.
"There is little probable," quoth Gaspar, "at Breuthe."
"Then Orange is lost," I muttered, half to myself.
"Teufel! What would you have?" cried Gaspar sharply. Men grow angry before inevitable ill. "What would you have? We are but men: the odds are his." ”

“ Neither dared meet the other's eyes, for if aught will rouse a man it is a woman who tells him he is a coward.
I rose and walked to and fro in the shadow, gnawing my lip. "The odds are his!" I had said that too—and I had had my answer. And the glory, if it could be done! The glory, ay, and the gold! We should have a claim on Orange then—a claim that would mean broad crowns. So my thoughts ran.
"Well?" asked Gaspar, as I lay down again.
"We try Breuthe," I said curtly.
"Ay, ay, I thought so," he grumbled. "Why not wait for the convoys?"
"We try Breuthe!" ”

“ So the grey morning light broke over Breuthe town with a camp burning yellow against the sun, and soldiers fighting a foe that used strange arms. Truly a burning powder-barrel travelling swiftly is a weapon of much service. Wherefore to this day there be certain Spaniards think me the devil; belike they are those who thought Alva a god. ”