Presently, the Spaniards, as they gazed from the bridge, began to take heart again.  One after another, many of the lesser vessels drifted blindly against the raft, where they entangled themselves among the hooks and gigantic spearheads, and burned slowly out without causing any extensive conflagration.  Others grounded on the banks of the river, before reaching their destination.  Some sank in the stream.

Last of all came the two infernal ships, swaying unsteadily with the current; the pilots of course, as they neared the bridge, having noiselessly effected their escape in the skiffs.  The slight fire upon the deck scarcely illuminated the dark phantom-like hulls.  Both were carried by the current clear of the raft, which, by a great error of judgment, as it now appeared, on the part of the builders, had only been made to protect the floating portion of the bridge.  The ‘Fortune’ came first, staggering inside the raft, and then lurching clumsily against the dyke, and grounding near Kalloo, without touching the bridge.  There was a moment’s pause of expectation.  At last the slow match upon the deck burned out, and there was a faint and partial explosion, by which little or no damage was produced.

Parma instantly called for volunteers to board the mysterious vessel.  The desperate expedition was headed by the bold Roland York, a Londoner, of whom one day there was more to be heard in Netherland history.  The party sprang into the deserted and now harmless volcano, extinguishing the slight fires that were smouldering on the deck, and thrusting spears and long poles into the hidden recesses of the hold.  There was, however, little time to pursue these perilous investigations, and the party soon made their escape to the bridge.

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.