Still, however, the Blaw-garen Dyke and its companion the Kowenstyn remained obstinately above the waters, forming a present and more fatal obstruction to the communication between Antwerp and Zeeland than would be furnished even by the threatened and secretly-advancing bridge across the Scheldt.  Had Orange’s prudent advice been taken, the city had been safe.  Over the prostrate dykes, whose destruction he had so warmly urged, the ocean would have rolled quite to the gates of Antwerp, and it would have been as easy to bridge the North Sea as to control the free navigation of the patriots over so wide a surface.

When it was too late, the butchers, and colonels, and captains, became penitent enough.  An order was passed, by acclamation, in November, to do what Orange had recommended in June.  It was decreed that the Blaw-garen and the Kowenstyn should be pierced.  Alas, the hour had long gone by.  Alexander of Parma was not the man to undertake the construction of a bridge across the river, at a vast expense, and at the same time to permit the destruction of the already existing barrier.  There had been a time for such a deed.  The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, who had a castle and manor on and near the dyke which bore his name, had repeatedly urged upon the Antwerp magistracy the propriety of piercing this bulwark, even after their refusal to destroy the outer barrier.  Sainte Aldegonde, who vehemently urged the measure, protested that his hair had stood on end, when he found, after repeated entreaty, that the project was rejected.  The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, disgusted and indignant, forswore his patriotism, and went over to Parma.  The dyke fell into the hands of the enemy.  And now from Stabroek, where old Mansfeid lay with his army, all the way across the flooded country, ran the great bulwark, strengthened with new palisade-work and block-houses, bristling with Spanish cannon, pike, and arquebus, even to the bank of the Scheldt, in the immediate vicinity of Fort Lille.  At the angle of its junction with the main dyke of the river’s bank, a strong fortress called Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) had been constructed.  That fortress and the whole line of the Kowenstyn were held in the iron grip of Mondragon.  To wrench it from him would be no child’s play.  Five new strong redoubts upon the dyke, and five or six thousand Spaniards established there, made the enterprise more formidable than it would have been in June.  It had been better to sacrifice the twelve thousand oxen.  Twelve thousand Hollanders might now be slaughtered, and still the dyke remain above the waves.

Here was the key to the fate of Antwerp.

On the other hand, the opening of the Saftingen Sluice had done Parma’s work for him.  Even there, too, Orange had been prophetic.  Kalloo was high and dry, but Alexander had experienced some difficulty in bringing a fleet of thirty vessels, laden with cannon and other valuable materials, from Ghent along the Scheldt, into his encampment, because it was necessary for them, before reaching their destination, to pass in front of Antwerp.  The inundation, together with a rupture in the Dyke of Borght, furnished him with a watery road; over which his fleet completely avoided the city, and came in triumph to Kalloo.