Part 48 (1/2)

”And you have sent your two hundred?”

”Yes, my Lord King”.

”Have you received the two hundred from the _Mahomet?_”

”They had not arrived when I left the _Boodah_”.

”So that you left only one hundred men in the _Boodah_, with instructions to receive two hundred others?”

”That is so, my Lord King”.

There was silence.

”But suppose I tell you that I have given no such instructions: will your heart--_leap?_”

Hogarth clapped a sudden hand of horror upon Quilter-Beckett's shoulder.

”My G.o.d--!” Quilter-Beckett started like a gun's recoil.

”Be calm, Admiral: it may be only some mistake....From whence had you this order?”

”From--from the _Mahomet_, in the usual course--”

”Good night, Admiral; I would be alone”.

At that very hour a world-tragedy was being enacted over the dark and turbulent ocean, and the immensest of Empires was sinking into the sea.

Darkly, quietly, with no mighty and mult.i.tudinous tumult of man.

That midnight the night-gla.s.s of many a mystified merchantman searched the murk for those coruscations with which the crescent of forts had constellated the Atlantic, the mariner's sea-rent waiting ready, with his s.h.i.+p's-papers, in his cash box: but no galaxy of lights glanced that night.

To some, before this, they had appeared, but, as the s.h.i.+p approached, had vanished, and it was as though the swarm of the Pleiades had been caught from the skies before their eyes. Long before dawn s.h.i.+ps separated by three thousand miles had gained the a.s.surance that this or that sea-fort no longer rode the familiar spot-had been rapt to the stars, had sunk, had somehow pa.s.sed from being. Before this monstrous marvel the mariner stood dumb, and it was afterwards said that that wild night the terminals of heaven and earth were lost, that the storm-winds were haunted, in all the air lamentation, sobbings as for swallowed orbs, and the whisper: ”It is finished”.

Two days previously a telegram from Admiral O'Hara had gone to all the forts in European waters, commanding an interchange of 200 of their men with men of his own fort; and each officer in command, ignorant that the same instructions had gone to others, had complied: so that by the next morning, the 29th April, 1600 men from eight forts were converging in yachts upon the _Mahomet_. As the fort garrisons, originally numbering 500, had recently been reduced to 300, the others having been mostly drafted into the 2nd Division of the British Royal Marines, compliance with Admiral O'Hara's order left a garrison of 100 only at each of eight forts.

Toward five in the afternoon of that day, the 29th, 700 men, to the bewilderment of her officers, were in the _Mahomet_ two of the fort-yachts having arrived upon a troubled First Lieutenant who was in command, all attempts to see the Admiral since the morning having failed.

But near seven the Admiral summoned the Treasurer to his _bureau_ near the bottom, he being in dressing-gown and slippers, very slovenly, seeming either drunk or sick, his mouth gaping to his pantings, and anon his languis.h.i.+ng eye shot dyingly to heaven.

”Well, you see how I am, Mr. Treasurer”, he went, ”seedy. Pain in this temple, trouble with the respiration, and a foul breath. Poor Admiral Donald, Mr. Treasurer, poor Admiral Donald. The fas.h.i.+on of this world pa.s.seth away, sir, and the Will of G.o.d be done! Sometimes, I pledge you my word, I almost wish that I was dead. There are things, sir, in this world--Ah, well, G.o.d help me; I feel very chippy. I wanted to ask you, sir, to let me see the books, and hand me over at once all unaudited and unsettled funds in your counting-house, though I'm not fit for affairs to-day, sir, G.o.d knows--”

”Sir!” cried the Treasurer, a hard-browed, bald-headed man with a fan-beard, savouring of banks and ledgers.

”Just pa.s.s them over, sir”.

”Well, this is the most singular order I ever heard of!”

”Obey me promptly, sir, or, by G.o.d, I cas.h.i.+er you!” roared O'Hara, his raised lids laying nude the debauchery of those jaundiced juicy b.a.l.l.s.

”Be it so, Admiral Donald”--the Treasurer bowed: ”but on the understanding that I formally protest against the irregularity, and report it to the High Chancellor”.