Guided by the light of the fireships they approached the dyke, and the Zeelanders sprang ashore and climbed up. They were met by several hundred Spanish troops, who, as soon as they saw the fireships burn out harmlessly, sallied out from their forts. The Zeelanders were beginning to give way when the Antwerp fleet came up on the other side, headed by Sainte Aldegonde. The new arrivals sprang from their boats and climbed the dyke. The Spaniards were driven off, and three thousand men occupied all the space between Fort George and the Palisade Fort. With Sainte Aldegonde came all the English and Scotch troops in Antwerp under Balfour and Morgan, and many volunteers, among whom was Ned Martin. With Hohenlohe came Prince Maurice, William the Silent's son, a lad of eighteen. With wool sacks, sandbags, planks, and other materials the patriots now rapidly entrenched the position they had gained, while a large body of sappers and miners set to work with picks, mattocks, and shovels, tearing down the dyke. The Spaniards poured out from the forts; but Antwerpers, Dutchmen, Zeelanders, Scotchmen, and Englishmen met them bravely, and a tremendous conflict went on at each end of the narrow causeway. Both parties fought with the greatest obstinacy, and for an hour there was no advantage on either side. At last the patriots were victorious, drove the Spaniards back into their two forts, and following up their success attacked the Palisade Fort. Its outworks were in their hands when a tremendous cheer was heard. The sappers and miners had done their work. Salt water poured through the broken dyke, and a Zeeland barge, freighted with provisions, floated triumphantly into the water beyond, now no longer an inland sea. Then when the triumph seemed achieved another fatal mistake was made by the patriots. Sainte Aldegonde and Hohenlohe, the two commanders of the enterprise, both leapt on board, anxious to be the first to carry the news of the victory to Antwerp, where they arrived in triumph, and set all the bells ringing and bonfires blazing. For three hours the party on the dyke remained unmolested. Parma was at his camp four leagues away, and in ignorance of what had been done, and Mansfeldt could send no word across to him. The latter held a council of war, but it seemed that nothing could be done. Three thousand men were entrenched on the narrow dyke, covered by the guns of a hundred and sixty Zeeland ships. Some of the officers were in favour of waiting until nightfall; but at last the advice of a gallant officer, Camillo Capizucca, colonel of the Italian Legion, carried the day in favour of an immediate assault, and the Italians and Spaniards marched together from Fort Stabroek to the Palisade Fort, which was now in extremity.