et forth,
almost at once, upon its fatal voyage.

It was known to Parma that preparations for an attack were making at
Antwerp, but as to the nature of the danger he was necessarily in the
dark. He was anticipating an invasion by a fleet from the city in
combination with a squadron of Zeelanders coming up from below. So soon
as the first vessels, therefore, with their trains not yet lighted, were
discovered bearing down from the city, he was confirmed in his
conjecture. His drama and trumpets instantly called to arms, and the
whole body of his troops was mustered upon the bridge; the palisades, and
in the nearest forts. Thus the preparations to avoid or to contend with
the danger, were leading the Spaniards into the very jaws of destruction.
Alexander, after crossing and recrossing the river, giving minute
directions for repelling the expected assault, finally stationed himself
in the block-house at the point of junction, on the Flemish aide, between
the palisade and the bridge of boats. He was surrounded by a group of
superior officers, among whom Richebourg, Billy, Gaetano, Cessis, and the
Englishman Sir Rowland Yorke, were conspicuous.

It was a dark, mild evening of early spring. As the fleet of vessels
dropped slowly down the river, they suddenly became luminous, each ship
flaming out of the darkness, a phantom of living fire. The very waves of
the Scheldt seemed glowing with the conflagration, while its banks were
lighted up with a preternatural glare. It was a wild, pompous, theatrical
spectacle. The array of soldiers on both aides the river, along the dykes
and upon the bridge, with banners waving, and spear and cuirass glancing
in the lurid light; the demon fleet, guided by no human hand, wrapped in
flames, and flitting through the darkness, with irregular movement; but
portentous aspect, at the caprice of wind and tide; the death-like
silence of expectation, which had succeeded the sound of trumpet and the
shouts of the soldiers; and the weird glow which had supplanted the
darkness-all combined with the sense of imminent and mysterious danger to
excite and oppress the imagination.

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