ed her more carefully
than she had been directed by wind and tide. Avoiding the raft which lay
in her way, she had, as it were, with the intelligence of a living
creature, fulfilled the wishes of the daring genius that had created her;
and laid herself alongside the bridge, exactly at the most telling point.
She had then destroyed herself, precisely at the right moment. All the
effects, and more than all, that had been predicted by the Mantuan wizard
had come to pass. The famous bridge was cleft through and through, and a
thousand picked men--Parma's very "daintiest"--were blown out of
existence. The Governor-General himself was lying stark and stiff upon
the bridge which he said should be his triumphal monument or his tomb.
His most distinguished officers were dead, and all the survivors were
dumb and blind with astonishment at the unheard of, convulsion. The
passage was open for the fleet, and the fleet, lay below with sails
spread, and oars in the rowlocks, only waiting for the signal to bear up
at once to the scene of action, to smite out of existence all that
remained of the splendid structure, and to carry relief and triumph into
Antwerp.

Not a soul slept in the city. The explosion had shook its walls, and
thousands of people thronged the streets, their hearts beating high with
expectation. It was a moment of exquisite triumph. The 'Hope,' word of
happy augury, had not been relied upon in vain, and Parma's seven months
of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment. Sainte Aldegonde and
Gianibelli stood in the 'Boors' Sconce' on the edge of the river. They
had felt and heard the explosion, and they were now straining their eyes
through the darkness to mark the flight of the welcome rocket.

That rocket never rose. And it is enough, even after the lapse of three
centuries, to cause a pang in every heart that beats for human liberty to
think of the bitter disappointment which crushed these great and
legitimate hopes. The cause lay in the incompetency and cowardice of the
man who had been so unfortunately entrusted with a share in a noble
enterprise.

Admiral Jacobzoon, paralyzed by the explosion, which announced his own
triumph, sent off the barge, but did not wait for its return. The
boatmen, too, appalled by the sights and sounds which they had witnessed,
and by the murky darkness which encompassed them, did not venture near
the scene of action, but, after rowing for a short interval hither and
thither, ca