The troops of Parma, crowding on the palisade, and looking over the parapets, now began to greet the exhibition with peals of derisive laughter.  It was but child’s play, they thought, to threaten a Spanish army, and a general like Alexander Farnese, with such paltry fire-works as these.  Nevertheless all eyes were anxiously fixed upon the remaining fire-ship, or “hell-burner,” the ‘Hope,’ which had now drifted very near the place of its destination.  Tearing her way between the raft and the shore, she struck heavily against the bridge on the Kalloo side, close to the block-house at the commencement of the floating portion of the bridge.  A thin wreath of smoke was seen curling over a slight and smouldering fire upon her deck.

Marquis Richebourg, standing on the bridge, laughed loudly at the apparently impotent conclusion of the whole adventure.  It was his last laugh on earth.  A number of soldiers, at Parma’s summons, instantly sprang on board this second mysterious vessel, and occupied themselves, as the party on board the ‘Fortune’ had done, in extinguishing, the flames, and in endeavoring to ascertain the nature of the machine.  Richebourg boldly directed from the bridge their hazardous experiments.

At the same moment a certain ensign De Vega, who stood near the Prince of Parma, close to the block-house, approached him with vehement entreaties that he should retire.  Alexander refused to stir from the spot, being anxious to learn the result of these investigations.  Vega, moved by some instinctive and irresistible apprehension, fell upon his knees, and plucking the General earnestly by the cloak, implored him with such passionate words and gestures to leave the place, that the Prince reluctantly yielded.

It was not a moment too soon.  The clockwork had been better adjusted than the slow match in the ‘Fortune.’  Scarcely had Alexander reached the entrance of Saint Mary’s Fort, at the end of the bridge, when a horrible explosion was heard.  The ‘Hope’ disappeared, together with the men who had boarded her, and the block-house, against which she had struck, with all its garrison, while a large portion of the bridge, with all the troops stationed upon it, had vanished into air.  It was the work of a single instant.  The Scheldt yawned to its lowest depth, and then cast its waters across the dykes, deep into the forts, and far over the land.  The earth shook as with the throb of a volcano.  A wild glare lighted up the scene for one moment, and was then succeeded by pitchy darkness.  Houses were toppled down miles away, and not a living thing, even in remote places, could keep its feet.  The air was filled with a rain of plough-shares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed with the heads, limbs, and bodies, of what had been human beings.  Slabs of granite, vomited by the flaming ship, were found afterwards at a league’s distance, and buried deep in the earth.  A thousand soldiers were destroyed in a second of time; many of them being torn to shreds, beyond even the semblance of humanity.