Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/266

240 Orange that the expedition must be abandoned if the wind did not change. Then came the storm. The waters rose, and the Kirk-way, already broken through, was soon  levelled, and the flotilla passed in triumph  at midnight toward the village of Zoeterwoude. Not half a mile distant from the farmhouse in which the children were incarcerated, the fleet received its first challenge  from the guarding Spanish sentinels, and  answered with such a roar of cannon as all  but staggered the astounded outposts.

Then ensued a terrible battle, amid a scene perhaps the strangest in which ever a battle  was fought. From out the village of Zoeterwoude flocked the Spanish, making their way in any kind of craft on which they could lay  hands. The fleet found itself progressing amid half-submerged tree-tops and orchards,  interspersed with chimney stacks and the  roofs of low houses. In this strange surrounding they grappled with the Spanish enemy. All the advantage, however, was on