sed to repel the threatened invasion.

The monitors were thereupon to fire a certain number of rounds, then,
followed in a parallel course by the transports, make for Zeebrugge.
Alternate visits to both the Belgian ports in German hands were to be
made throughout the day, thereby wearing out the German troops in
fruitless marching and counter-marching, and at the same time diverting
a strong body of men from a section of the trenches upon which the
British troops were to deliver a sudden and unexpected assault.

At four in the morning the monitors began to leave Dover Harbour.
Thanks to the stringent military precautions taken in the
town--precautions that could with decided advantage be imitated
elsewhere--the presence of spies was almost, if not quite, a matter of
impossibility. Unheralded by the Kaiser's agents, the small yet
powerful vessels cleared the entrance to the breakwater and headed for
the Belgian coast.

An hour later a masthead lamp blinked from the _Vega_--the senior
officer's ship of the patrol flotilla. Then, in line ahead, the swift
motor craft slipped quietly out of the harbour to overtake their slower
consorts.

The _Capella_, like the rest of her sister ships, was cleared for
action. Stanchion-rails were unshipped; everything likely to splinter
was sent below. In the wake of the armoured protection, sandbags were
placed to reinforce the steel plating. Although the patrol-vessels
were not to take part in the bombardment, they had to be prepared in
case a forlorn hope in the shape of a few German torpedo-boats might
attempt a sudden onslaught.

As attendants upon the sea-planes, too, it was possible that the
patrol-boats would have to approach within range of the garrison
artillery, especially in the event of one of the aerial craft being
disabled and falling into the sea, on its return from "spotting" the
hits of the monitors' guns.

Dawn had not yet broken when the monitors, followed at two miles'
distance by the motor patrol, came in sight of the search-lights on the
low-lying Belgian coast. Beyond the limit of direct rays, yet within
range of their monster guns, the monitors were safe from detection.
All that was wanting was the presence of the sea-planes, for whose work
daylight was essential.

Slowly a pale light spread on the north-eastern horizon. The short
wintry day was breaking. The sea was calm. The air was piercingly
cold. A thin coating of frost covered the _Capella's