Then a seething plunge, as the wreck sunk down, followed by a darkness that could be, metaphorically speaking, cut with a sabre.
But pieces of the wreck were hurled as far as the sands, on which they fell, still hot and blazing.
Another explosion took place very soon after. It was, if anything, more horrible. A third, a fourth, and a fifth.
The torpedoes had done their terrible work with a completeness that had never before been equalled.
Two vessels, had not been sunk, but one of these had taken fire, white smoke spued up from her first, then flames quickly spreading fore and aft.
And by the light of this blaze of war the Sultan's flagship could still be seen swaying safe and stately at her moorings.
A more terrible, because less sudden fate was reserved for her.
Abdularram knew his business. He knew that three or four times a week the youthful Sultan was in the habit of sleeping on board this battle-ship, the after quarters having been furnished for his sake with all the luxuriousness of an eastern palace.
"He may be there to-night," thought the great chief, "and I have orders to make him prisoner. Never a torpedo must be fired in her direction, never a hair of the monarch's head must fall to the ground."
Guided by telephonic communication with Admiral Abdularram's ship, the midget fleet had pierced the darkness in two lines, and taken up positions in the same formation in which Nelson had placed his ships at the battle of the Nile.