On the night of the 28th, 2500 horsemen set out from Douai, under the command of the Chevalier de Luxembourg, each having forty pounds of powder in his valise.  They arrived at the gate of the walls of circumvallation, when the Dutch sentry cried out: 

“Who comes there?”

“Open quickly!” the leader answered in the same language; “I am closely pursued by the French.”

The sentry opened the gate, and the horsemen began to pass in.  Eighteen hundred had passed without suspicion being excited, when one of the officers, seeing that his men were not keeping close up, gave the command in French: 

“Close up! close up!”

The captain of the guard caught the words, and suspecting something, ordered the party to halt; and then, as they still rode in, ordered the guard to fire.  The discharge set fire to three of the powder bags, and the explosion spreading from one to another, sixty men and horses were killed.  The portion of the troops still outside the gate fled, but the 800 who had passed in rode forward through the allied camp and entered the town in safety, with 70,000 pounds of powder!

Another deed of gallantry, equal to anything ever told in fiction, was performed by a Captain Dubois of the French army.  It was a matter of the highest importance for the French generals to learn the exact state of things at Lille.  Captain Dubois volunteered to enter the fortress by water.  He accordingly left the French camp, and swimming through seven canals, entered the Dyle near the place where it entered the besiegers’ lines.  He then dived, and aided by the current, swam under water for an incredibly long distance, so as entirely to elude the observation of the sentinels.  He arrived in safety in the town, exhausted with his great exertions.

After having had dry clothes put on him, and having taken some refreshment, he was conducted round the walls by Marshal Boufflers, who showed him all the defensive works, and explained to him the whole circumstances of the position.  The next night he again set out by the Dyle, carrying dispatches in an envelope of wax in his mouth, and after diving as before through the dangerous places, and running innumerable risks of detection, he arrived in safety in the French camp.

But it was not the French alone who had run short of ammunition.  Marlborough had also been greatly straitened, and there being now no possibility of getting through convoys from Brussels, he persuaded the home government to direct a considerable expedition, which had been collected for the purpose of exciting an alarm on the coast of Normandy, and was now on board ship in the Downs, to be sent to Ostend.  It arrived there, to the number of fourteen battalions and an abundant supply of ammunition, on the 23rd of September; and Marlborough detached 15,000 men from his army to protect the convoy on its way up.

On the 27th of September, the convoy started, crossed the canal of Nieuport at Leffinghen, and directed its course by Slype to defile through the woods of Wyndendale.  General Webb, who commanded the troops detached for its protection, took post with 8000 men to defend its passage through the wood, which was the most dangerous portion of the journey, while Cadogan with the rest of the force was stationed at Hoglede to cover the march farther on.