Excerpt from Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders IT lacked two hours before the dawn on this sultry night early in September. The crescent moon had long ago sunk behind a bank of clouds in the west, and not a sound stirred the low-lying land around the besieged city. To the south the bivouac fires of Alva's camp had died out one by one, and here the measured tread Of the sentinels on their beat alone broke the silence of the night. TO the north, where valorous Orange with a handful of men - undisciplined, unpaid and rebellious - vainly tried to pro voke his powerful foe into a pitched battle, relying on God for the result, there was greater silence still. The sentinels - wearied and indifferent - had dropped to sleep at their post: the troops, already mutinous, only held to their duty by the powerful personality of the Prince, slept as soundly as total indifference to the cause for which they were paid to fight could possibly allow. In his tent even Orange - tired out with ceaseless watch ing - had gone to rest. His guards were in a profound sleep. Then it was that from the south there came a stir, and from Alva's entrenchments waves of something alive that breathed in the darkness of the night were set in motion, like when the sea rolls inwards to the shore. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.