en busy among the cruisers, and then the main
force, under Admiral Durenne, would follow, and take possession of
Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. A detachment of cruisers
and destroyers was then to be despatched to Littlehampton, and land a
sufficient force to seize and hold the railway at Ford and Arundel, so
that the coast line of the L.B.S.C.R., as well as the main line to
Horsham and London, should be at the command of the invaders.

Littlehampton was also particularly valuable on account of its tidal
river and harbour, which would give shelter and protection to a couple
of hundred torpedo boats and destroyers, and its wharves from which
transports could easily coal. It is hardly worth while to add that it
had been left entirely undefended. It had been proposed to mount a
couple of 9.2 guns on the old fort on the west side of the river mouth,
with half a dozen twelve-pound quick-firers at the Coast-Guard station
on the east side to repel torpedo attack, but the War Office had laughed
at the idea of an enemy getting within gunshot of the inviolate English
shore, and so one of the most vulnerable points on the south coast had
been left undefended.

What would Castellan have given now for the torpedoes which the two
ships had wasted in the wanton destruction of Portsmouth, and the murder
of its helpless citizens. The main French Fleet by this time could not
be very far off. Behind it, somewhere, was the British Channel Fleet,
the most powerful sea force that had ever ridden the subject waves, and
here he was without a torpedo on either of his ships, and no supplies
nearer than Kiel. The _Leger_ had carried two thousand torpedoes and
five hundred cylinders of the gases which supplied the motive power. She
was gone, and for all offensive purposes the _Flying Fish_ and _See
Adler_ were as harmless as a couple of balloons.

When it was too late, John Castellan remembered in the bitterness of his
soul that the torpedoes which had destroyed Portsmouth would have been
sufficient to have wrecked the Channel Fleet, and now there was nothing
for it but to leave Admiral Durenne to fight his own battle against the
most powerful fleet in the world, and to use what was left of the motive
power to get back to Kiel, and replenish their magazines.

Horrible as had been the fate which had fallen on the great arsenal of
southern England, it had not been sacrificed in vain, and very sick at
heart was John Castellan when h