ted on board the _Ithuriel_ and
her three consorts, were replaced, and then the whole squadron rose
into the air from one of the peaks of Rockall Island and winged its
way southward to the north-western coast of Spain. They made the
Spanish land near Corunna shortly before eight on the following
evening, and here the four Russian prisoners were released on the
sea-shore and provided with money to take them as far as Valladolid,
whence they would be able to communicate with the French military
authorities at Toulouse.

The Terrorist Squadron then rose once more into the air, ascended to
a height of two thousand feet, skirted the Portuguese coast, and then
took a south-easterly course over Morocco through one of the passes
of the Atlas Mountains, and so across the desert of Sahara and the
wilds of Central Africa to Aeria.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE BREAKING OF THE CHARM.

The first news of the Russian attack on Aberdeen was received in
London soon after five o'clock on the afternoon of the 30th, and
produced an effect which it is quite beyond the power of language to
describe. The first telegram containing the bare announcement of the
fact fell like a bolt from the blue on the great Metropolis. It ran
as follows:--

Aberdeen, 4.30 P.M.

A large fleet, supposed to be the Russian fleet which broke the
blockade of the Baltic on the morning of the 28th, has appeared
off the town. About forty large vessels can be made out. Our
defences are quite inadequate to cope with such an immense force,
but we shall do our best till help comes.

After that the wires were kept hot with messages until well into the
night. The newspapers rushed out edition after edition to keep pace
with them, and in all the office windows of the various journals
copies of the telegrams were posted up as soon as they arrived.

As the messages multiplied in number they brought worse and worse
tidings, until excitement grew to frenzy and frenzy degenerated into
panic. The thousand tongues of rumour wagged faster and faster as
each hour went by. The raid upon a single town was magnified into a
general invasion of the whole country.

Very few people slept in London that night, and the streets were
alive with anxious crowds till daybreak, waiting for the
confidently-expected news of the landing of the Russian troops, in
spite of the fact that the avowed and real object of the raid had
been made public early in the evening