That was on November 11th, and already, in the east, the last act of the drama had begun. On November 9th, there drew in shore, opposite V beach on the Gallipoli Peninsula, a large transport and an old cruiser laden with British troops. Behind them, in the Straits, there plied industriously a great fleet of drifters and mine-sweepers, no longer under fire, and clearing a way through the minefields for the fleet that was to occupy the Sea of Marmora. Before them, a gray bulk, lay the _River Clyde_, beached as before and alone with her memories, and, on the hill above, stood a little group of Turkish artillerymen waiting to yield up the guns of Cape Helles. From these two transports, there presently put to shore, one on the Asiatic side, and one on V beach, two flat-bottomed barges each carrying 500 men. Such, without pomp, and almost in silence, was the second landing on Gallipoli Peninsula. The next day, followed by the French destroyer _Mangini_, the youngest destroyer in the British navy--_le roi est mort, vive le roi_, the _Shark_ had been lost at Jutland; this was the new one--anchored, the symbol of victory, off Constantinople; and, on November 13th, the British and French Fleets, led by {287} the flagship _Superb_, steamed to their anchorage. _Superb_, _Téméraire_, _Lord Nelson_, and _Agamemnon_--half the world's history lay in their names--they were followed by the cruisers and destroyer-flotillas of the British fleet of occupation. Behind them came a French squadron, followed in its turn by the Italian and Greek warships, the bulk of the fleets remaining in the Sea of Marmora, and only certain units entering the Bosphorus. The _Superb_ and _Téméraire_ anchored near the European shore, facing the Sultan's Palace and the Chamber of Deputies; astern of them lay the French, and, behind these again, the Italian and the Greek men-of-war. Every precaution against treachery had been taken, but this proved to be unnecessary; and, within the next two or three weeks, the whole of the Turkish Fleet and the battle-cruiser _Goeben_ had been formally surrendered. With them, unseen, but none the less present, the German empire of the East had given up its sceptre.