Week after week he remained, at Ostend, sneering at the French and quaffing huge draughts in honour of Queen Elizabeth.

At last, after much time had elapsed, he agreed to victual Antwerp if he could be furnished with thirty krom-stevens,--a peculiar kind of vessel, not to be found in Zeeland.

The krom-stevens were sent to him from Holland.

Then, hearing that his negligence had been censured by the States-General, he became more obstinate than ever, and went up and down proclaiming that if people made themselves disagreeable to him he would do that which should make all the women and children in the Netherlands shriek and tremble.

What this nameless horror was to be he never divulged, but meantime he went down to Middelburg, and swore that not a boat-load of corn should go up to Antwerp until two members of the magistracy, whom he considered unpleasant, had been dismissed from their office.