CHAPTER IV.
In another moment the enemy's fleet had hove in sight. Our movements in the ten minutes preceding the fatal conflict will be best understood by consulting the annexed diagram:—
We advanced in this imposing order for five minutes. Then came a puff of smoke, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, two thousand men had been literally blown into thin air, their sole remnant being the left shoe of my trusty second in command, Captain GLIMDOWSE. I trained the two turret-guns until I had got them into perfect condition, and gave the word. The crash that followed was terrific. One of the massive missiles went home, and stayed there, no amount of inducement availing to bring it out again to face the battle. The other, however, behaved as a British missile should, and exploded in the heart of the hostile fleet. The result was terrific. French, German and Russian Admirals by the thousand were destroyed, their scattered fragments literally darkening the face of the sun, and a mixed shower of iron, steel, stanchions, bollards, monster guns, Admirals, sailors, stewards, cocked-hats, and Post Captains fell for ten minutes without intermission from the clouds into which they had been driven by the awful force of the explosion. I turned to my Lieutenant, who was standing beside me, to give a necessary order. As I was about to address him, the machine-guns in the enemy's tops belched forth a myriad projectiles, and the unfortunate Lieutenant was swept into eternity. All that was left of him was his right hand, which, curiously enough, remained for a minute suspended in the air in its proper relative position to what had been the Lieutenant's body. I mastered my emotion with an effort, as I reverently grasped and shook the melancholy relic. Then, shedding a silent tear, I dropped it over the side, and with an aching heart, watched it disappear beneath the wave on which many of its former owner's happiest hours had been spent.
CHAPTER V.
This catastrophe ended the battle. The allied fleets had been swept off the face of the ocean. I packed what remained of H.M.S. Bandersnatch in my tobacco-pouch, attached myself to a hen-coop, and thus floated triumphantly into Portsmouth Harbour.
CHARLEMAGNE AND I.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Monday.—I have always had a strange longing to know CHARLEMAGNE. To shake him by the hand, to have opportunity of inquiring after his health and that of his family, to hear his whispered reply—that indeed were bliss. But CHARLEMAGNE is dead, and desire must be curbed. The only thing open to an admirer is to visit the place of his last repose, and brood in spots his shade may yet haunt. CHARLEMAGNE was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle (German Aachen), but since my arrival in the town, I find great difficulty in discovering his tomb. The great soldier Emperor resembled an unfortunate and unskilful pickpocket in one respect. He was always being taken up. He died in the year 814, and was left undisturbed till the year 1000, when the Emperor OTTO THE THIRD opened his tomb, and, finding his great predecessor sitting on a marble chair, helped him down. The marble chair is on view in the Cathedral to this day (verger, I mark) to witness to the truth of this narrative. One hundred and sixty-five years later, FREDERICK BARBAROSSA opened the second tomb where OTHO had placed C., and transferred to a marble sarcophagus what, at this date, was left of him. In the following century C. was canonised. Whereupon nothing would satisfy FREDERICK THE SECOND but to go for the bones again. They were now growing scarce, and only a few fragments fill the reliquary in which at length all that is left of my revered friend (if after this lapse of time I may call him so) reposes.
I have been fortunate in securing a relic, not exactly of CAROLO, but of the time at or about which he lived. It is a piece of tapestry, on which fingers long since dust have worked a sketch of the Emperor going to his bath. Considering its age, the tapestry is in remarkably fresh condition. The old Hebrew trader, whom for a consideration I induced to part with it, said he would not charge any more on that account; which I thought very considerate. He also said he might be able to get me some more pieces. But this, I think, will do to go on with.