Yet the besieged—­discomfited but undismayed lost not a moment in strengthening their inner works, and in doing their best, day after day, by sortie, cannonade, and every possible device, to prevent the foe from obtaining full advantage of his success.  The triumph was merely a local one, and the patient Hollanders soon proved to the enemy that the town was not gained by carrying the three squares, but that every inch of the place was to be contested as hotly as those little redoubts had been.  Ostend, after standing nearly two years of siege, was not to be carried by storm.  A goodly slice of it had been pared off that April night, and was now in possession of the archduke, but this was all.  Meantime the underground work was resumed on both sides.

Frederic Spinola, notwithstanding the stunning defeat sustained by him in the preceding October, had not lost heart while losing all his ships.  On the contrary, he had been busy during the winter in building other galleys.  Accordingly, one fine morning in May, Counsellor Flooswyk, being on board a war vessel convoying some empty transports from Ostend, observed signs of mischief brewing as he sailed past the Gut of Sluys; and forthwith gave notice of what he had seen to Admiral Joost de Moor, commanding the blockading squadron.  The counsellor was right.  Frederic Spinola meant mischief.  It was just before sunrise of a beautiful summer’s day.  The waves were smooth—­not a breath of wind stirring—­and De Moor, who had four little war-ships of Holland, and was supported besides by a famous vessel called the Black Galley of Zeeland, under Captain Jacob Michelzoon, soon observed a movement from Sluys.

Over the flat and glassy surface of the sea, eight galleys of the largest size were seen crawling slowly, like vast reptiles, towards his .. position.  Four lesser vessels followed in the wake of the great galleys.  The sails of the admiral’s little fleet flapped idly against the mast.  He could only placidly await the onset.  The Black Galley, however, moved forward according to her kind; and was soon vigorously attacked by two galleys of the enemy.  With all the force that five hundred rowers could impart, these two huge vessels ran straight into the Zeeland ship, and buried their iron prows in her sides.  Yet the Black Galley was made of harder stuff than were those which had gone down in the channel the previous autumn under the blows of John Kant.  Those on board her, at least, were made of tougher material than were galley-slaves and land-soldiers.  The ramming was certainly not like that of a thousand horse-power of steam, and there was no very great display of science in the encounter; yet Captain Jacob Michelzoon, with two enemy’s ships thus stuck to his sides, might well have given himself up for lost.  The disproportion of ships and men was monstrous.  Beside the chain-gang, each of Spinola’s ships was manned by two hundred soldiers, while thirty-six musketeers from the Flushing