y
to prove more effective than the gigantic 'War's End,' which he had
prophesied would prove a failure. With these he pledged himself to
destroy the bridge. He demanded three ships which he had selected from
the city fleet; the 'Orange,' the 'Post,' and the 'Golden Lion,'
measuring, respectively, one hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty,
and five hundred tons. Besides these, he wished sixty flat-bottomed
scows, which he proposed to send down the river, partially submerged,
disposed in the shape of a half moon, with innumerable anchors and
grapnel's thrusting themselves out of the water at every point. This
machine was intended to operate against the raft.

Ignorance and incredulity did their work, as usual, and Gianbelli's
request was refused. As a quarter-measure, nevertheless, he was allowed
to take two smaller vessels of seventy and eighty tons. The Italian was
disgusted with parsimony upon so momentous an occasion, but he at the
same time determined, even with these slender materials, to give an
exhibition of his power.

Not all his the glory, however, of the ingenious project. Associated with
him were two skilful artizans of Antwerp; a clockmaker named Bory, and a
mechanician named Timmerman--but Gianibelli was the chief and
superintendent of the whole daring enterprise.

He gave to his two ships the cheerful names of the 'Fortune' and the
'Hope,' and set himself energetically to justify their titles by their
efficiency. They were to be marine volcanos, which, drifting down the
river with tide, were to deal destruction where the Spaniards themselves
most secure.

In the hold of each vessel, along the whole length, was laid down a solid
flooring of brick and mortar, one foot thick and five feet wide. Upon
this was built a chamber of marble mason-work, forty feet long, three and
a half feet broad, as many high, and with side-walks [walls? D.W.] five
feet in thickness.

This was the crater. It was filled with seven thousand of gunpowder, of a
kind superior to anything known, and prepared by Gianibelli himself. It
was covered with a roof, six feet in thickness, formed of blue
tombstones, placed edgewise. Over this crater, rose a hollow cone, or
pyramid, made of heavy marble slabs, and filled with mill-stones, cannon
balls, blocks of marble, chain-shot, iron hooks, plough-coulters, and
every dangerous missile that could be imagined. The spaces between the
mine and the sides of each ship were likewise filled