The Scheld, flowing past the city of Antwerp and separating the provinces of Flanders and Brabant, opens wide its two arms in nearly opposite directions, before it joins the sea.  Between these two arms lie the isles of Zealand, half floating upon, half submerged by the waves.  The town of Tergoes was the chief city of South Beveland, the most important part of this archipelago, but South Beveland had not always been an island.  Fifty years before, a tempest, one of the most violent recorded in the stormy annals of that exposed country, had overthrown all barriers, the waters of the German Ocean, lashed by a succession of north winds, having been driven upon the low coast of Zealand more rapidly than they could be carried off through the narrow straits of Dover.  The dykes of the island had burst, the ocean had swept over the land, hundreds of villages had been overwhelmed, and a tract of country torn from the province and buried for ever beneath the sea.  This “Drowned Land,” as it is called, now separated the island from the main.  At low tide it was, however, possible for experienced pilots to ford the estuary, which had usurped the place of the land.  The average depth was between four and five feet at low water, while the tide rose and fell at least ten feet; the bottom was muddy and treacherous, and it was moreover traversed by three living streams or channels; always much too deep to be fordable.

Captain Plomaert, a Fleming of great experience and bravery, warmly attached to the King’s cause, conceived the plan of sending reinforcements across this drowned district to the city of Tergoes.  Accompanied by two peasants of the country, well acquainted with the track, he twice accomplished the dangerous and difficult passage; which, from dry land to dry land, was nearly ten English miles in length.  Having thus satisfied himself as to the possibility of the enterprise, he laid his plan before the Spanish colonel, Mondragon.  That courageous veteran eagerly embraced the proposal, examined the ground, and after consultation with Sancho Avila, resolved in person to lead an expedition along the path suggested by Plomaert.  Three thousand picked men, a thousand from each nation,—­Spaniards, Walloons, and Germans, were speedily and secretly assembled at Bergen op Zoom, from the neighbourhood of which city, at a place called Aggier, it was necessary that the expedition should set forth.  A quantity of sacks were provided, in which a supply of, biscuit and of powder was placed, one to be carried by each soldier upon his head.  Although it was already late in the autumn, the weather was propitious; the troops, not yet informed:  as to the secret enterprise for which they had been selected, were all ready assembled at the edge of the water, and Mondragon, who, notwithstanding his age, had resolved upon heading the hazardous expedition, now briefly, on the evening of the 20th October, explained to them the nature of the service.  His statement