It was horrible, but it was true. Inside an hour the strongest
fortifications in England had been destroyed, and ten first-class
battleships and a cruiser had been sent to the bottom of the sea, and so
at last her ancient sceptre was falling from the hand of the Sea Queen,
and her long inviolate domain was threatened by the armed legions of
those whose forefathers she had vanquished on many a stricken field by
land and sea.

"Well, gentlemen," said the Prime Minister to the other members of the
Cabinet Council, who were sitting round that historic oval table in the
Council Chamber in Downing Street, "we may as well confess that this is
a great deal more serious than we expected it to be, and that is to my
mind all the better reason why we should strain every nerve to hold
intact the splendid heritage which our fathers have left to us--"

Boom! A shudder ran through the atmosphere as he spoke the last words,
and the double windows in Downing Street shook with the vibration. The
members of the Cabinet started in their seats and looked at each other.
Was this the fulfilment of the half prophecy which the Prime Minister
had spoken so slowly and so clearly in the silent, crowded House of
Commons?

Almost at the same moment the electric bell at the outer of the double
doors rang. The doors were opened, and a messenger came in with a
telegram which he handed to the Prime Minister, and then retired. He
opened the envelope, and for nearly five minutes of intense suspense he
mentally translated the familiar cypher, and then he said, as he handed
the telegram to the Secretary for War:

"Gentlemen, I deeply regret to say that the possible prospect which I
outlined in the House to-night has become an accomplished fact. Two
hundred and forty-three years ago London heard the sound of hostile
guns. We have heard them to-night. This telegram is from Sheerness, and
it tells, I most deeply regret to say, the same story, or something like
it, as the messages from Portsmouth. A Russo-German-French fleet of
battleships, cruisers and destroyers, assisted by four airships and an
unknown number of submarines, has defeated the Southern portion of the
North Sea Squadron, and is now proceeding in two divisions, one up the
Medway towards Chatham, and the other up the Thames towards Tilbury.
Garrison Fort is now being bombarded from the sea and the air, and will
probably be in ruins within an hour."

CHAPTER XIII

A CRIME AND A MISTA