As to the other boats, they arrived at Tarifa the following evening, with 583; but the Admiral ordered the Mahomet II. to Cadiz, where soon after midnight he landed, and, by negotiation with a “Jefe”, in an hour had a train for Madrid. As he was about to step in, the Treasurer touched his shoulder.
“What, Admiral, off by land?”
“Yes, sir, as you know”, said O'Hara, “for you have been spying my movements for the last hour. How childish to imagine that I have anything to fear, or want to escape! Why, I am bound for England—my only object in the land journey being quickness. I even invite you to come with me.”
“All right, Admiral, I will....If you be tempted to murder me en route, remember these”—a pair of pistols; and they set out at about the hour when the whole crescent of tragedies was over.
At six that evening a yacht, a copy of the Mahomet II., had come to the Cattegat sea-fort to land 200 men who wore the Empire's blue-jacket, the name “Mahomet” on their caps—nothing to show that they were not genuine Mahomet men, though some looked rather sea-sick; but in reality they were young lords, stock-brokers, Territorial Officers, men-about-town, park-keepers, undergraduates, secretly armed with knife and revolver, and knowing, too, where the armoury of the sea-fort lay.
Meantime, three other yachts, all named Mahomet II., were a-ply in the Atlantic, two containing 400 men each, one 600, each of the first two to land 200 at a fort at six, and her remaining 200 at the next fort by eight-thirty, serving four forts, the last to land 200 at each of three forts: so that by 10.30 P.M. each of eight forts, including the Cattegat, contained 200 enemies disguised as fort-men.
And punctually at eleven, in each, began perhaps the darkest massacre of history—no quarter given—and when the alarm went forth, whichever of the unarmed fort-men rushed to the dark armoury found the door fastened against him. Of two men in bed, talking together through an open door, one arose at the stroke of a clock and killed the other; some perished in sleep—all very quietly accomplished: a few shots, a few lost echoes in the vast castles, a few daubs of blood. And in no case did a single one, either massacred or assassin, escape alive: for, in every case, some one or other of the fort-officers—Admiral, Lieutenant, Commander—to prevent capture, opened the inlet to the flood in the very thick of the doom, went down with his muteness and his bubbling, and the sea, a secret in its bosom, rolled over the Sea.