Page:The silent prince - a story of the Netherlands (IA cu31924008716957).pdf/276



board the flotilla, manned by Admiral Boisot and eight hundred bold Zealanders, who neither gave nor received quarter, the sailors watched with eager interest the condition of the clouds and the waves.

It was now a week since the great dyke had been pierced, and the rise of the waters was stayed. The flotilla remained motionless, having accomplished but two out of the fifteen miles which separated it from the starving city. The wind remained easterly, which was unfavorable. The waters fell to a depth of nine inches, and it required eighteen or twenty inches to float the vessels.

A gale arose, however, and for three days and nights the wind blew from the northwest. The waters rose rapidly, and the vessels passed all the barriers until they reached North Aa, where they were stopped by the dyke called the Kirk-way. The gale had now subsided, and the wind once more changed to easterly.

The sailors were frantic at their enforced idleness. 264