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The vassals of Burgundy, his ministers and followers all, soon occupied their several posts of preparation for the expedition against Holland, the preliminary points of which had been long going forward, under all this apparent abandonment to pleasure and dissipation. Not a day was lost, and nothing was neglected that could tend to ensure success. Every moment which Philip could snatch from the council-room or camp was divided between dalliance in the company of his beloved countess, superintendance of his various suits of armour with Jacob Wonters, and trials of skill, and lessons of martial exercise with Spalatro.

Intelligence of a somewhat startling nature was, on one of the latest of those days of preparation, received from Brussels. It announced the seizure and execution of a young student, for an attempt to strangle Duke John with an iron collar. The dying words of Giles Postel were remembered on this occasion, and not one individual in Hesdin Castle had a doubt of Jacque line's complicity in John Chevalier's crime.

CHAPTER XI.

JACQUELINE's friends, the faithful and victorious Hoeks, were indefatigable in obtaining information of the Duke of Burgundy's movements; and every possible preparation was made to meet the coming shock, by those whose courage or despair made them equal to the crisis. The English force, the main reliance of the common cause, was concentrated in the island of Schowen, which private information had pointed out as the intended point of attack, by

the formidable army which now day by day approached from Picardy and Flanders. The contingents from the various towns of Holland and Zealand, which were faithful to Jacqueline, hastened to that rendezvous for the main division of her forces; but serious defection from her cause became evident as the danger approached; and though some volunteers from the chapter and city of Utrecht came frequently straggling up, the promised reinforcement of the bishop's men-at-arms and pikemen had not yet made their appearance. Several letters, indeed, reached Jacqueline from her reverend ally, cheering her on with words of advice and frothy phrases of good-will-but Zweder Van Culembourg's name was not yet fairly committed, in such a way as to entitle it to be placed on the muster-roll of the just cause.

Jacqueline still held her little court at Amersfort, the strongest and most secure of all her towns. Her mother remained with her, upholding, in appearance, her spirits and courage,

but in reality causing, by her presence, an effect almost sufficient to paralize her native energy.

Fitz-walter had set off to take the command of his little army. The gay-hearted Louis had also left his sister, and repaired to the post of active duty. Rudolf Van Diepenholt was following up his own interests, the better to enable him to serve Jacqueline with the chapter of Utrecht; so that with the exception of the rude and often unmanageable chiefs of the friendly faction, who formed her counsel, Jacqueline was left almost wholly dependent on the resources of her own powerful mind. But these did not fail her in this important crisis. She bore well and firmly her many mortifications and privations; and reposing solely on Benina Beyling's fidelity, she seemed straining herself to the utmost pitch of endurance against ill-fate.

The forebodings of coming ruin which she could not repress were not a little strengthened by Ludwick Van Monfoort, who now returned from his mission to Hesdin, and bluntly told

to his anxious mistress all that befel him there. He detailed his having contrived, by bribing a servant, to slip a warning billet into Duke Philip's plate, even at his banquet board; and his having been obliged to leave the castle without otherwise being able to thwart Giles Postel's diabolical designs. Whether they had succeeded or failed he knew not; but he took care to add fresh and acute pain to Jacqueline's uncertainty on that head, by informing her that the young Kabblejaw hunter, in whose praise he had so often in his own despite held forth, was no other than a minion of Burgundy, a vowed partisan of John of Brabant. and the son of the worst enemy to Jacqueline, himself, and the party of the Hoeks in general.

This was an agonising winding up of Jacquelin's suffering on Vrank's account. She had clung to the hope that, though a Kabblejaw and a follower of Philip, he might have borne a name of no deep importance in the cause of