And so when--on the 22nd--the fleets assembled at Portland and Milford Haven before _rendezvous_ at the Lizard, the whole original proposal had fallen through: for here was neither tricolour nor saltire, only three German ships, only five Italian; the “probability”, moreover, of the capture of a sea-fort by England was imminent: and on the evening of the mobilisation of the squadrons feverish activity was reported from Toulon; a British Legation _attaché,_, seeing fit to stroll round the Caserne Pepinière, beheld in the yard an extraordinary crowd of limbers: and, pitching into a cab, from the nearest _postes et télégraphes_ wired to London the word: “Angleterre”. Too late: the British fleets were gone, leaving the Channel and Western Mediterranean desert. Now the nation awoke to a consciousness of dark skies: cloud of the west rushing to meet a yet lurider eastern--with probability of lightning. The fleet could hardly return in less than five days--if it returned! Would the hostile nations be good enough to await its return? The lightning would be “near”. A day of fear, in which flash tracked flash: till at 11.30 P.M. the rumour pervaded the crowd round St. Stephen's that the new Ministry had suffered defeat: and the drifting ship was captainless. And early the next morning a number of _Boodah_ boats, out running a regatta, came tearing back, all fluttered; soon after which Quilter-Beckett was hurrying into Hogarth's presence, who was at coffee, to say: “Well, my Lord King, here they come at last--and enough of them, I think”. XXXVI THE “BOODAH” AND THE BATTLESHIPS The ships had gone forth in two lines ahead at ten knots, Admiral Sir Henry Yerburgh, K.C.B., being in the flagship Queen Mary, with the capital-ships being nearly all of the five mosquito flotillas, and half the Home submarine; though what was the object of the torpedo craft (unless they were to go within 2,000 yards of the _Boodah's_ guns) was not very evident. At that news, Hogarth, putting on a wide-awake, and lighting a cigar with rough perfunctory puffs, ran along a corridor to call Loveday, whereupon the two went out to the ledge and up to the roof. There, at the south edge, stood a marine trumpeting something at Hogarth's yacht; and, just landing at the _Boodah_ from his gig, a fretful Yankee skipper, register in hand with a bag of £900 sea-rent in gold, while twenty yards yonder rode his smoking ship loaded with grain for Rouen; and on the eastern horizon the armada, in crescent at present, moving with fires banked at two knots, a glare hiding them from the naked eye, but the glass revealing them like toys in the abstract, ethereally hazy.