y out of the question. To have
attempted such a thing would have been simply a form of collective
suicide, so the flags were hauled down, and all that was left of the
fleet surrendered.

Another circumstance which had placed the French fleet at a tremendous
disadvantage was the absence of the three _Flying Fishes_, which were to
have co-operated with the invading fleet, but of course neither Admiral
Durenne, who had gone down with his ship, nor any other of his officers
knew that the _Banshee_ had been blown up in mid-air, or that the
_Ithuriel_ had destroyed the depot ship, and so forced Castellan, after
his mad waste of ammunition in the destruction of Portsmouth, to wing
his way to Kiel, with the _See Adler_, in order to replenish his
magazines. Had those two amphibious craft been present at the battle,
the issue might have been something very different.

The whole fight had only taken a couple of hours from the firing of the
first shot to the hauling down of the last flag. Admiral Beresford made
direct for Portsmouth to get his lame ducks into dock if possible, and
to discover the amount of damage done. As they steamed in through the
Spithead Forts, flags went up all along the northern shore of the Isle
of Wight, and the guns on the Spithead Forts and Fort Monckton, which
the _Banshee_ had been commissioned to destroy, roared out a salute of
welcome.

The signal masts of the sunk battleships showed where their shattered
hulls were lying, and as the _Britain_ led the way in between them, Lord
Beresford rubbed his hands across his eyes, and said to his Commodore,
who was standing on what was left of the navigating bridge:

"Poor fellows, it was hardly fair fighting. We might have had something
very like those infernal craft if we'd had men of decent brains at the
War Office. Same old story--anything new must be wrong in Pall Mall.
Still we've got something of our own back this morning. I hope we shall
be able to use some of the docks; if I'm not afraid our lame ducks will
have to crawl round to Devonport as best they can. The man in command of
those airships must have been a perfect devil to destroy a defenceless
town in this fashion. The worst of it is that if they can do this sort
of thing here they can do it just as easily to London or Liverpool, or
Manchester or any other city. I hope there won't be any more bad news
when we get ashore."

CHAPTER XVI

HOW THE FRENCH LANDED AT PORTSMOUTH

All the s