The deed was done.  A breach, two hundred feet in width was made.  Had the most skilful pilot in Zeeland held the helm of the ‘Hope,’ with a choice crew obedient to his orders, he could not have guided her more carefully than she had been directed by wind and tide.  Avoiding the raft which lay in her way, she had, as it were, with the intelligence of a living creature, fulfilled the wishes of the daring genius that had created her; and laid herself alongside the bridge, exactly at the most telling point.  She had then destroyed herself, precisely at the right moment.  All the effects, and more than all, that had been predicted by the Mantuan wizard had come to pass.  The famous bridge was cleft through and through, and a thousand picked men—­Parma’s very “daintiest”—­were blown out of existence.  The Governor-General himself was lying stark and stiff upon the bridge which he said should be his triumphal monument or his tomb.  His most distinguished officers were dead, and all the survivors were dumb and blind with astonishment at the unheard of, convulsion.  The passage was open for the fleet, and the fleet, lay below with sails spread, and oars in the rowlocks, only waiting for the signal to bear up at once to the scene of action, to smite out of existence all that remained of the splendid structure, and to carry relief and triumph into Antwerp.

Not a soul slept in the city.  The explosion had shook its walls, and thousands of people thronged the streets, their hearts beating high with expectation.  It was a moment of exquisite triumph.  The ‘Hope,’ word of happy augury, had not been relied upon in vain, and Parma’s seven months of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment.  Sainte Aldegonde and Gianibelli stood in the ‘Boors’ Sconce’ on the edge of the river.  They had felt and heard the explosion, and they were now straining their eyes through the darkness to mark the flight of the welcome rocket.

That rocket never rose.  And it is enough, even after the lapse of three centuries, to cause a pang in every heart that beats for human liberty to think of the bitter disappointment which crushed these great and legitimate hopes.  The cause lay in the incompetency and cowardice of the man who had been so unfortunately entrusted with a share in a noble enterprise.

Admiral Jacobzoon, paralyzed by the explosion, which announced his own triumph, sent off the barge, but did not wait for its return.  The boatmen, too, appalled by the sights and sounds which they had witnessed, and by the murky darkness which encompassed them, did not venture near the scene of action, but, after rowing for a short interval hither and thither, came back with the lying report that nothing had been accomplished, and that the bridge remained unbroken.  Sainte Aldegonde and Gianibelli were beside themselves with rage, as they surmised the imbecility of the Admiral, and devoted him in their hearts to the gallows, which he certainly deserved.  The wrath of the keen Italian may be conceived, now that his ingenious and entirely successful scheme was thus rendered fruitless by the blunders of the incompetent Fleming.