The oil lamp was threatening to go out. Leone della Rota called for another light, more wine. He needed both in this dark night. His soul seemed a wild and desolate place. VI. The Black Galley. On Fort Liefkenhoek the banner embroidered with the lion of Leon and the towers of Castile flutters proudly. The same banner flies over Fort Lillo and all the other forts staring into the jaws of hell on both banks of the Scheldt right up as far as the mighty walls of the citadel in Antwerp. Sharp eyes keep watch over all these ramparts and walls, and the calls and the answering calls of the sentries never stop by day or by night. The enemy is also close by and vigilant. He can appear at any moment. Who knows the hour at which he will come? All around Zeeland's coastline the North Sea surges. It is here, on Tholen, on Schouwen, on North and South Beveland, on Walcheren, that the fearsome men of iron live who were first to swear an oath that they would rather be Turks than Papists and who wear a silver half-moon on their hats and carry in their hearts an all consuming, unquenchable hatred for Spaniards. What children mothers give birth to on these sea-sprayed sand dunes! Protect this land, you towers of Castile, keep good watch over the bastion of Flanders, you lion of Leon. "Better a country spoilt than a country lost" was the opinion of Zeeland sailors who, from the defeated Spaniards of Veere and Leyden, tore the hearts from their chests, bit into them and threw them to their dogs to eat. "Eat this, bitter though it is!" On Fort Liefkenhoek, on Fort Lillo, on the Kruisschanze, on Fort Pearl and San Felipe, on Forts Maria, Ferdinand and Isabella the cry goes out: "Keep good watch! Keep good watch!" The cannons on the Brabant side of the Scheldt and the cannons on the Flemish side are ready to spit out death and destruction onto any venturesome vessel that dares to make its way upstream in the direction of Antwerp. "Keep good watch! Keep good watch!" But the night is dark and neither moonlight nor starlight make it any brighter. It is hard to keep watch well on such a night. How still and warm it is! Only the roaring of the great river sounds on and on against the background of the warning cries of the soldiers on the walls: "Keep good watch! Keep good watch!" What is coming from South Beveland towards the western arm of the Scheldt where river and sea meet up with each other and can no longer be told apart? What is gliding over the waves under cover of darkness? It is propelled by a hundred strange arms, flying swift as an arrow just like the ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman. A ship's mighty form cuts through the waves and others come after it, less powerful ones.