The garrison had long since disappeared from the walls, and all there was to hear from the top of Fort Liefkenhoek were the calls and the tread of the night watch and the roar of the waves and the once again gathering storm.
The colonel circled his walls one more time and encouraged the twice as numerous as usual night watch to keep a good lookout; then he went down to his quarters where his officers, in response to his invitation, had all come together. Only Captain Jeronimo was missing, as was his wont when his comrades-in-arms gathered socially. They left him to his own devices, were sorry that he wasn't there and laughed and joked about his prophecies.
The captain had indeed been right! His Catholic Majesty and Federigo Spinola of Genoa had lost a valiant ship during that stormy night. The next morning charred remnants of the Immaculate Conception were washed up on the dunes of South Beveland at the feet of heretics, and the evening tide carried more than one mutilated body in Spanish uniform down to the walls of Fort Bats. Captain Jeronimo's grim prediction had been proved true—the sea beggars had emerged victorious from the previous night's skirmish.
II.
On Board the Andrea Doria.
Fishermen brought the news of the night's happenings to the town of Antwerp and, depending on where one's political sympathies lay, there was secret rejoicing or gnashing of teeth among the town's inhabitants.
The name of the Black Galley promptly spread among the populace and was linked with varying degrees of certitude to the unfortunate events that had just taken place.
Who, during such a night of storms as the previous night had been, could have carried out such an action if it were not the crew of the black galley?
In town squares, in back streets, in workshops, in churches, in the town hall and in the citadel the rumour was heard. On the warships and the merchant ships that lay at anchor at the quayside, next to the houses and walls of the town, the rumour also circulated. Everywhere, as already mentioned, consternation or masked jubilation were visible on people's faces.
"The black galley! The black galley!"
That was Federigo Spinola, a noble patrician from Genoa, an enterprising son of that rich republic's most famous family, who had entered into a contract with the King of Spain, Philip the Third, to prepare a fleet for the service of His Catholic Majesty to be used against the Dutch rebels and to sail it into the North Sea. All booty and all the ships captured from the heretics became the property of Admiral Spinola and so he went with an impressive array of galleys and galleons, manned with sixteen hundred bold sailors, out of Genoa, went through the Straits of Gibraltar, rounded Cape Saint Vincent, was joined by a large number of audacious Viscayan pirates and privateers in the Bay of Biscay and later by a large number of Dunkirk freebooters and appeared on 11 September 1599 in the port of Sluys, where he dropped anchor and from where he commenced his activities in the North Sea.