And now there was a tremendous cheer of triumph.  The beavers had done their work, the barrier was bitten through and through, the salt water rushed like a river through the ruptured dyke.  A few moments later, and a Zeeland barge, freighted with provisions, floated triumphantly into the waters beyond, now no longer an inland sea.  The deed was done—­the victory achieved.  Nothing more was necessary than to secure it, to tear the fatal barrier to fragments, to bury it, for its whole length, beneath the waves.  Then, after the isthmus had been utterly submerged, when the Scheldt was rolled back into its ancient bed, when Parma’s famous bridge had become useless, when the maritime communication between Antwerp and Holland had been thoroughly established, the Spaniards would have nothing left for it but to drown like rats in their entrenchments or to abandon the siege in despair.  All this was in the hands of the patriots.  The Kowenstyn was theirs.  The Spaniards were driven from the field, the batteries of their forts silenced.  For a long period the rebels were unmolested, and felt themselves secure.

“We remained thus some three hours,” says Captain James, an English officer who fought in the action, and described it in rough, soldierly fashion to Walsingham the same day, “thinking all things to be secure.”  Yet in the very supreme moment of victory, the leaders, both of the Hollanders and of the Antwerpers, proved themselves incompetent to their position.  With deep regret it must be admitted, that not only the reckless Hohenlo, but the all-accomplished Sainte Aldegonde, committed the gravest error.  In the hour of danger, both had comported themselves with perfect courage and conduct.  In the instant of triumph, they gave way to puerile exultation.  With a celerity as censurable as it seems incredible, both these commanders sprang into the first barge which had thus floated across the dyke, in order that they might, in person, carry the news of the victory to Antwerp, and set all the bells ringing and the bonfires blazing.  They took with them Ferrante Spinola, a mortally-wounded Italian officer of rank, as a trophy of their battle, and a boatload of beef and flour, as an earnest of the approaching relief.

While the conquerors were thus gone to enjoy their triumph, the conquered, though perplexed and silenced, were not yet disposed to accept their defeat.  They were even ignorant that they were conquered.  They had been forced to abandon the field, and the patriots had entrenched themselves upon the dyke, but neither Fort Saint George nor the Palisade had been carried, although the latter was in imminent danger.