l, "Complete victory--welcome,"
was flying from the signalyard of the _Victor Hugo_. Again a mighty
cheer thundered out from the deck of every transport. The cruisers
saluted the transports with seventeen guns, and then the two divisions
swung out to right and left, and took their stations on either flank of
the transports.

And so, all unsuspecting, they steamed into Spithead, and when they saw
the British ships lying at anchor, flying the Tricolor and the same flag
waving over Fort Monckton and Southsea Castle, as well as from half a
dozen other flagstaffs about the dockyards, there could be no doubt as
to the magnitude and completeness of the victory which the French Fleet
had gained, and moreover, were not those masts showing above the waters
of Spithead, the masts of sunken British battleships.

Field-Marshal Purdin de Trevillion, Commander of the Expeditionary
Force, accompanied by his staff, was on board the Messageries liner
_Australien_, and led the column of transports. In perfect confidence he
led the way in between the Spithead Forts, which also flew the Tricolor
and saluted him as he went past. As the other vessels of the great
flotilla followed in close order, Fort Monckton and the rest of the
warships saluted; and then as the last transport entered the narrow
waters, a very strange thing happened. The cruisers that had dropped
behind spread themselves out in a long line behind the forts; the
British ships slipped their moorings and steamed out from Stokes Bay and
made a line across to Ryde. Destroyers and torpedo boats suddenly dotted
the water with their black shapes, appearing as though from nowhere;
then came down every Tricolor on fort and ship, and the White Ensign ran
up in its place, and the same moment, the menacing guns swung round and
there was the French flotilla, unarmed and crowded with men, caught like
a flock of sheep between two packs of wolves.

Every transport stopped as if by common instinct. The French Marshal
turned white to the lips. His hands went up in a gesture of despair,
and he gasped to his second-in-command, who was standing beside him:

"Mon Dieu! Nous sommes trahis! Ces sacres perfides Anglais! We are
helpless, like rats in a trap. With us it is finished, we can neither
fight nor escape."

While he was speaking, the huge bulk of the _Britain_ steamed slowly
towards the _Australien_, flying the signal "Do you surrender?" Within
five hundred yards, the huge guns in her fo