In the course of twenty-four hours, the fleet at North Aa, instead of nine inches, had more than two feet of water.  No time was lost.  The Kirk-way, which had been broken through according to the Prince’s instructions, was now completely overflowed, and the fleet sailed at midnight, in the midst of the storm and darkness.  A few sentinel vessels of the enemy challenged them as they steadily rowed towards Zoeterwoude.  The answer was a flash from Boisot’s cannon; lighting up the black waste of waters.  There was a fierce naval midnight battle; a strange spectacle among the branches of those quiet orchards, and with the chimney stacks of half-submerged farmhouses rising around the contending vessels.  The neighboring village of Zoeterwoude shook with the discharges of the Zealanders’ cannon, and the Spaniards assembled in that fortress knew that the rebel Admiral was at last, afloat and on his course.  The enemy’s vessels were soon sunk, their crews hurled into the waves.  On went the fleet, sweeping over the broad waters which lay between Zoeterwoude and Zwieten.  As they approached some shallows, which led into the great mere, the Zealanders dashed into the sea, and with sheer strength shouldered every vessel through.  Two obstacles lay still in their path—­the forts of Zoeterwoude and Lammen, distant from the city five hundred and two hundred and fifty yards respectively.  Strong redoubts, both well supplied with troops and artillery, they were likely to give a rough reception to the light flotilla, but the panic; which had hitherto driven their foes before the advancing patriots; had reached Zoeterwoude.  Hardly was the fleet in sight when the Spaniards in the early morning, poured out from the fortress, and fled precipitately to the left, along a road which led in a westerly direction towards the Hague.  Their narrow path was rapidly vanishing in the waves, and hundreds sank beneath the constantly deepening and treacherous flood.  The wild Zealanders, too, sprang from their vessels upon the crumbling dyke and drove their retreating foes into the sea.  They hurled their harpoons at them, with an accuracy acquired in many a polar chase; they plunged into the waves in the keen pursuit, attacking them with boat-hook and dagger.  The numbers who thus fell beneath these corsairs, who neither gave nor took quarter, were never counted, but probably not less than a thousand perished.  The rest effected their escape to the Hague.

The first fortress was thus seized, dismantled, set on fire, and passed, and a few strokes of the oars brought the whole fleet close to Lammen.  This last obstacle rose formidable and frowning directly across their path.  Swarming as it was with soldiers, and bristling with artillery, it seemed to defy the armada either to carry it by storm or to pass under its guns into the city.  It appeared that the enterprise was, after all, to founder within sight of the long expecting and expected haven.  Boisot