_Jules
Ferry_, _Leon Gambetta_, _Victor Hugo_, _Aube_ and _Marseillaise_. He
took command of the squadron on board the _Victor Hugo_, and to the
amazement of officers and men alike, he ordered the Tricolor to be
hoisted. At the same time, the White Ensign fluttered down from all the
British ships that were not being taken into the dockyard and was
replaced by the Tricolor. A few minutes afterward the French flag rose
over Fort Monckton and upon a pole mast which had been put up amidst
the ruins of Southsea Castle.

The French prisoners of course saw the ruse and knew that its very
daring and impudence would command success. Some of them wrung their
hands and danced in fury, others wept, and others cursed to the full
capability of the French language, but there was no help for it. What
was left of Portsmouth was already occupied by twenty thousand men of
all arms from the Southern Division. The prisoners were disarmed and
their ships were in the hands of the enemy to do what they pleased with,
and so in helpless rage they watched the squadron of cruisers steam out
to meet the transports, flying the French flag and manned by British
crews. It meant either the most appalling carnage, or the capture of the
First French Expeditionary Force consisting of fifty thousand men, ten
thousand horses, and two hundred guns.

The daringly original stratagem was made all the easier of achievement
by the fact that the Commanders of the French transports, counting upon
the assistance of the airships and the enormous strength of the naval
force which had been launched against Portsmouth, had taken victory for
granted, and when the first line came in sight of land, and officers and
men saw the smoke-cloud that was still hanging over what twenty-four
hours before had been the greatest of British strongholds, cheer after
cheer went up. Portsmouth was destroyed and therefore the French Fleet
must have been victorious. All that they had to do, therefore, was to
steam in and take possession of what was left. At last, after all these
centuries, the invasion of England had been accomplished, and Waterloo
and Trafalgar avenged!

Happily, in the turmoil of the fight and the suddenness in which the
remains of the French Fleet had been forced to surrender, the captain of
the _Victor Hugo_ had forgotten to sink his Code Book. The result was
that when the cruiser squadron steamed out in two divisions to meet the
transports, the French private signa