"
"That is so, indeed," Francis Vere agreed. "They have assuredly
saved the town, and there is the greatest credit due to them. I
shall be glad, Uvedale, if you will report the matter to our leader.
You are in command of the mining works, and it will come better
from you than from me who is their captain."
Captain Uvedale made his report, and both Sir Roger Williams and
the governor thanked the boys, and especially Geoffrey, for the
great service they had rendered.
Very shortly the galleries were broken into in several other places,
and the battle became now as fierce and continuous down in the
cellars as it had before been on the breach. By the light of torches,
in an atmosphere heavy with the fumes of gunpowder, surrounded by
piled up barrels of wine, the defenders and assailants maintained
a terrible conflict, men staggering up exhausted by their exertion
and by the stifling atmosphere while others took their places below,
and so, night and day, the desperate struggle continued.
All these weeks no serious effort had been made for the relief of
the beleaguered town. Captains Hall and Allen had several times
swum down at night through the bridge of boats with letters from
the governor entreating a speedy succour. The States had sent a
fleet which sailed some distance up the Zwin, but returned without
making the slightest effort to break through the bridge of boats.
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