About the same time flash lights began to gleam from the Sultan's palace, and the forts opened fire at last.
A bit of useless braggadocio, for had the enemy been visible, which they were not, those gunners could not have hit a single ship. In fact, there is strong reason for believing that when a gun was trained, or a broadside to be fired by electricity the men placed their fingers in their ears and fell flat on the gallery floor.
The midget fleet, it was believed, had gone for the night. It was swallowed up in the black beyond. The Sultan, terror-stricken now, and weeping like a boy of ten, had been shut up in the inner recesses of his palace, and his bodyguard tripled.
The enemy had retired, it is true, but in three hours' time it gave ample evidence that, instead of having gone for good, it lingered out yonder for evil.
Without doubt it had come to stay until it had accomplished the object of its mission.
But now the sky had cleared, and the calm had come.
Out shone the radiant stars, and a moon in its last quarter shed silver radiance on the sea.
The beach at Zanzibar is of clearest sand, the blocks of buildings facing the roadstead whiter than granite, and in the dim light of the stars and scimitar moon they could be easily seen at a distance of two miles, and even at this long distance, with his midget fleet, Abdularram, knowing well the accuracy of his gunners' aim, commenced the bombardment of Zanzibar.
Their plan was to watch and wait till a volume of white smoke with a centre of fire showed out on shore, and to aim and fire at that particular spot.
The Admiral of the fleet thought that by this means he would manage soon to silence the forts.