“Obey me promptly, sir, or, by God, I cashier you!” roared O'Hara, his raised lids laying nude the debauchery of those jaundiced juicy balls. “Be it so, Admiral Donald”--the Treasurer bowed: “but on the understanding that I formally protest against the irregularity, and report it to the High Chancellor”. He retired, and in half an hour returned with two clerks who bore books, himself a carpet-bag containing in cash-boxes £850,000, paper and gold, which he deposited on the Admiral's _bureau_, and, after again protesting before the clerks, went away. Not far off by now were some of the other six fort-yachts, converging with their 200 upon the _Mahomet_, and as the Admiral had no intention of being put into irons as a lunatic in his own fort, at eight o'clock he stole from his apartments, dressed now, not in uniform, but in priest's robes and a voluminous cloak, bearing in one hand the bag, in the other a key. Those lower depths of the _Mahomet_ were an utter solitude, lit with rare rays; yet the Admiral journeyed through and up peering, skulking, pausing, hurrying, and, if by chance a light caught his face, it showed a horror of convulsive flesh, his body a mass of trembling, like jelly. Now, the forts had been built to fight; and (since nothing is impossible), if they fought, they might fall into an enemy's hand: to obviate which, there was in a little room on the third floor a handle which opened by hydraulics a door in the fort's side on the fifth floor below, the existence of this room being unknown save to each Admiral and to four of his lieutenants, and its key kept in a spot known to these. This key O'Hara now had in hand; and as he pushed it into the lock, his jaw jabbered like a baboon's. Night was now come; the sea rough; Spain lost to sight; the two emptied yachts on the way back to their forts; yonder the lights of the _Mahomet II_. lying-to; two officers in oilskins walking arm in arm, to and fro, on the roof; and said one: “Look at those waves there all of a sudden: they rather seem to be breaking on the wrong side of us”. Then they resumed their talk; and to and fro they walked, arm in arm. Till now one with sudden hiss: “But-good Christ-just look-why, the roof's _leaning_--!” At that moment an outcry and runners from below, shouts, a trumpet-call, were borne on the winds to them: for the Admiral had rushed up to the manned parts of the fort, all hell alight in his eyeballs, bawling out, “The boats! The _Mahomet_ is sinking!”