Each officer on arriving was requested to go down to the _Barfleur’s_ cabin. Hood was there, and he saw each one set his watch exactly by the flagship’s clock. Then all were ordered to return on board their respective ships. As the hands of the officers’ watches pointed to eleven, every ship was to cut her cable, come to sail at once, and get under way in line of battle ahead, every ship moving out to sea independently, steering to the westward, keeping on a given line of bearing. On no account must there be any noise—no hailing, no signalling whatever. Not a match must be struck on board, and all lights must be screened. Not a single mishap, not one mistake, from all accounts, marred the execution of the bold manœuvre. It was a black and moonless night. As six bells—eleven o’clock—clanged out on board the _Barfleur_, the other ships each struck six bells. The next moment a couple of heavy blows with an axe chopped the bower cable through on board every ship. Then, simultaneously, sails were let fall silently from the yards everywhere, and were swiftly and silently sheeted home. At once now, in unison, the whole fleet began to forge ahead, moving all together through the water. To aid in deceiving the enemy as to what was happening, lighted ship’s lanterns were left behind, lashed to poles set up on the casks that had served as cable buoys, making it appear from a very short distance off as though the fleet were still there, riding at anchor in the roads. The masterly _ruse_ succeeded to the full. The watch on board the English fleet could see the lights of some of de Grasse’s ships away to seaward. They themselves, one and all, entirely unobserved, passed out in the darkness. Not a trace of Hood’s twenty-two ships was visible when de Grasse came on deck on board his flagship, the _Ville de Paris_, next morning. They met Rodney at sea a few days later;—and then, in due course Rodney and Hood together smote the French once for all for that war, in the great battle of “The Glorious Twelfth of April,” 1782.[10] VIII THE PAGEANT OF THE _DONEGAL_:—A MEMORY OF ’98 Joy! joy! the day is come at last, the day of hope and pride— And see! our crackling bonfires light old Bann’s rejoicing tide, And gladsome bell and bugle-horn from Newry’s captured towers, Hark! how they tell the Saxon swine this land is ours—is OURS! Come, trample down their robber rule, and smite its venal spawn, Their foreign laws, their foreign Church, their ermine and their lawn, With all the specious fry of fraud that robbed us of our own; And plant our ancient laws again beneath our lineal throne!