Majesty," replied the Admiral, "but
it had to be done. If he'd got the top side of us we should have been in
as little pieces as he is now. I only hope it's John Castellan's craft.
If it is it will save a lot of trouble to both sides."

The Tsar did not reply. He was too busy thinking, and so was Lord
Kitchener.

That night there were divided counsels in the headquarters of the Allies
at Aldershot, and the Kaiser and his colleagues went to bed between two
and three in the morning without having come to anything like a definite
decision. As a matter of fact, within the last few hours things had
become a little too complicated to be decided upon in anything like a
hurry.

While the potentates of the Alliance were almost quarrelling as to what
was to be done, the _Auriole_ paid a literally flying visit to the
British positions, and then the hospitals. At Caversham, Lennard found
Norah Castellan taking her turn of night duty by the bedside of Lord
Westerham, who had, after all, got through his desperate ride with a
couple of bullets through his right ribs, and a broken left arm; but he
had got his despatches in all the same, though nearly two hours
late--for which he apologised before he fainted. In one of the wards at
Windsor Camp he found Auriole, also on night duty, nursing with no less
anxious care the handsome young Captain of Uhlans who had taken Lord
Whittinghame's car in charge in Rochester. Mrs O'Connor had got a
badly-wounded Russian Vice-Admiral all to herself, and, as she modestly
put it, was doing very nicely with him.

Meanwhile the news of the truce was proclaimed, and the opposing
millions laid themselves down to rest with the thankful certainty that
it would not be broken for at least a night and a day by the whistle of
the life-hunting bullet or the screaming roar and heart-shaking crash of
the big shell which came from some invisible point five or six miles
away. In view of this a pleasant little dinner-party was arranged for at
the Parmenter Palace at eight the next evening. There would be no
carriages. The coming and parting guests would do their coming and going
in airships. Mr Parmenter expressed the opinion that, under the
circumstances, this would be at once safer and more convenient.

But before that dinner-party broke up, the world had something very
different from feasting and merrymaking, or even invasion and military
conquest or defeat, to think of.

The result of Lennard's telegrams and