This enterprise was but a prelude, however, to the great undertaking which had now been thoroughly matured.  Upon the 26th May, another and most determined attack was to be made upon the Kowenstyn, by the Antwerpers and Hollanders acting in concert.  This time, it was to be hoped, there would be no misconception of signals.  “It was a determination,” said Parma, “so daring and desperate that there was no substantial reason why we should believe they would carry it out; but they were at last solemnly resolved to die or to effect their purpose.”

Two hundred ships in all had been got ready, part of them under Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau, to sail up from Zeeland; the others to advance from Antwerp under Sainte Aldegonde.  Their destination was the Kowenstyn Dyke.  Some of the vessels were laden with provisions, others with gabions, hurdles, branches, sacks of sand and of wool, and with other materials for the rapid throwing up of fortifications.

It was two o’clock, half an hour before the chill dawn of a May morning, Sunday, the 26th of the month.  The pale sight of a waning moon was faintly perceptible in the sky.  Suddenly the sentinels upon the Kowenstyn—­this time not asleep—­descried, as they looked towards Lillo, four fiery apparitions gliding towards them across the waves.  The alarm was given, and soon afterwards the Spaniards began to muster, somewhat reluctantly, upon the dyke, filled as they always were with the mysterious dread which those demon-vessels never failed to inspire.

The fire-ships floated slowly nearer, and at last struck heavily against the stockade-work.  There, covered with tar, pitch, rosin, and gunpowder, they flamed, flared, and exploded, during a brief period, with much vigour, and then burned harmlessly out.  One of the objects for which they had been sent—­to set fire to the palisade—­was not accomplished.  The other was gained; for the enemy, expecting another volcanic shower of tombstones and plough-coulters, and remembering the recent fate of their comrades on the bridge, had retired shuddering into the forts.  Meantime, in the glare of these vast torches, a great swarm of gunboats and other vessels, skimming across the leaden-coloured waters, was seen gradually approaching the dyke.  It was the fleet of Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau, who had been sailing and rowing since ten o’clock of the preceding night.  The burning ships lighted them on their way, while it had scared the Spaniards from their posts.

The boats ran ashore in the mile-long space between forts St. George and the Palisade, and a party of Zeelanders, Admiral Haultain, governor of Walcheren, at their head, sprang upon the dyke.  Meantime, however, the royalists, finding that the fire-ships had come to so innocent an end, had rallied and emerged from their forts.  Haultain and his Zeelanders, by the time they had fairly mounted the dyke, found themselves in the iron embrace of several hundred Spaniards.  After a brief fierce struggle, face