Hardly an officer or soldier among the besieging forces knew what it was to sleep.
There was a perpetual exchanging of signals and beacon-fires and rockets among the patriots--not a day or night, when a concerted attack by the Antwerpers from above, and the Hollanders from below, with gun-boats and fire-ships, and floating mines, and other devil's enginry, was not expected.
"We are always upon the alert," wrote Parma, "with arms in our hands.
Every one must mount guard, myself as well as the rest, almost every night, and the better part of every day." He was quite aware that something was ever in preparation; and the nameless, almost sickening apprehension which existed among his stout-hearted veterans, was a proof that the Mantuan's genius--notwithstanding the disappointment as to the great result--had not been exercised entirely in vain.

The image of the Antwerp devil-ships imprinted itself indelibly upon the Spanish mind, as of something preternatural, with which human valour could only contend at a disadvantage; and a day was not very far distant--one of the memorable days of the world's history, big with the fate of England, Spain, Holland, and all Christendom--when the sight of a half-dozen blazing vessels, and the cry of "the Antwerp fireships," was to decide the issue of a most momentous enterprise.

The blow struck by the obscure Italian against Antwerp bridge, although ineffective then, was to be most sensibly felt after a few years had passed, upon a wider field.
Meantime the uneasiness and the watchfulness in the biesieging army were very exhausting.

"They are never idle in the city," wrote Parma.

"They are perpetually proving their obstinacy and pertinacity by their industrious genius and the machines which they devise.