The waters of the North Sea were for the first time furrowed by those Roman galleys which had only been used hitherto by those who lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. And so it came about that, at first, even the intrepid and fearless fisherfolk of Zeeland felt the fear engendered by the unfamiliar when confronted by these Italian galleys that struck the waves like the hundred-oar feet of giant water-beetles.
Thus, in the beginning, Federigo Spinola did a roaring trade and won many a richly laden merchantman and many a poor fishing boat from the Dutch until the initial shock experienced by the latter had worn off and they dared more boldly to get to grips with their new enemies. The States General sent a sizeable squadron and, in the heat of battle, not only were a large number of enemy privateers annihilated, but they even went as far as to capture one of the terrible galleys.
This remarkable vessel was brought in triumph back to Amsterdam and here something similar was built along the same lines and manned with the bravest hearts and hands. It was of a threateningly black colour and the newly painted black galley was soon scaring the Spaniards and Admiral Federigo Spinola out of their wits. The speculative venture of the Genoan bore from then on no longer such good fruit as it had done at first.
So the black galley was no ghost ship, no spectral apparition, but a thing of wood and iron, and neither was its crew a phantom crew. Beings of flesh and blood clambered aloft in the rigging, set the sails, loaded the blunderbusses and boarded enemy ships with the blood-curdling cry:
"Sultan before Pope!"
People were talking about the black galley on the squares and in the alleyways of Antwerp and everyone wanted to know more about the rumour that the splendid trireme, the Immaculate Conception, had been scuttled and blown up the previous night by men of Zeeland.
Then it gradually grew dark again; a thick fog came up from the Scheldt and came to rest over the town of Antwerp. The lights of the quayside shimmered redly through the mist and the rigging of the galleon, the Andrea Doria, dripped with condensation. The ship lay at anchor next to the harbour walls and the houses on the quayside and on its deck Captain Antonio Valani, a young man approximately thirty years old, wrapped in a thick cloak, walked backwards and forwards while the waves of the river, gently lapping the hull of his ship, washed to and fro and from the quayside and the town came the dull din of excited locals.
The captain paused in his pacing and stared up at the lights of the town shimmering over the wall just as at his side his bosun, Leone della Rota, a boon companion of his youth from la strada Giulia in Genoa, appeared and put his hand on his shoulder:
"A penny for your thoughts, Antonio."
The man to whom this was directed looked up almost startled.