This great flagship now began to vomit forth fire and shot and shell, and the rattle of her belching guns was louder far than the loudest thunder.
But in the inky night there was now no visible target, for the burning ship had soon blown up. They might as well have fired in the empty air.
Then flashlights were turned upon her by the enemy, lighting her up fitfully, and for a moment or two only.
For the time being, the streams of electric light were only necessary to guide the midgets towards her.
Five of these latter surrounded her, and a hellish legion of fierce cutlass-armed fighting Arabs swarmed on board of her.
There had been a sudden lull in the storm, the thunder had also ceased to rattle, though the seas still lashed in fury. It was as if Nature appalled, held her breath to witness the horrors of the fight that was now raging on the battle decks of the Sultan's flagship.
The cries, the yells, the wild appeals for mercy, could be distinctly heard at the Consul's window, and added to the horror of this terrible night.
But it was soon over. The crew had all been slain, or leapt overboard in wild panic, and those who remained alive were rushed below and imprisoned, The Sultan was not found.
The flagship's fires had been found banked, and soon after her capture, with every light extinguished, she was steaming out to sea.
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.