Open hostilities had begun.
On the morning of November 4th, under the cover of a thick fog, the treacherous Spaniards, commanded by Romero, Vargas and Valdez entered the fortress.

The citizens, among them Adam, learned this fact with rage and terror, but the mutineers of Aalst had not yet collie.
"He is keeping them back," Ruth had said the day before.

"Antwerp, our home, is sacred to him!" The cannon roared, culverins crashed, muskets and arquebuses rattled; the boding notes of the alarm-bells and the fierce shouts of soldiers and citizens hurrying to battle mingled with the deafening thunder of the artillery.
Every hand seized a weapon, every shop was closed; hearts stood still with fear, or throbbed wildly with rage and emotion.

Ruth remained calm.
She detained the smith in the house, repeating her former words: "The men from Aalst are not coming; he is keeping diem back." Just at that moment the young apprentice, whose parents lived on the Scheldt, rushed with dishevelled hair into the workshop, gasping: "The men from Aalst are here.

They crossed in peatboats and a galley.
They wear green twigs in their helmets, and the Eletto is marching in the van, bearing the standard.