lost, was guessed by intuition rather than
known as a certainty. Australia was as isolated from Britain as
though it had been on another planet, and now every one of the
Atlantic cables had suddenly ceased to respond to the stimulus of the
electric current. No ships came from the East, or West, or South. The
British ports were choked with fleets of useless merchantmen, to
which the markets of the world were no longer open.

Some few venturesome craft that had set out to explore the now silent
ocean had never returned, and every warship that could be made fit
for service was imperatively needed to meet the now inevitable attack
on the shores of the English Channel and the southern portions of the
North Sea. Only one messenger had arrived from the outside world
since the remains of Admiral Beresford's fleet had returned from the
Mediterranean, and she had come, not by land or sea, but through the
air.

On the 6th of October an air-ship had been seen flying at an
incredible speed across the south of England. She had reached London,
and touched the ground during the night on Hampstead Heath; the next
day she had descended again in the same place, taken a single man on
board, and then vanished into space again. What her errand had been
is well known to the reader; but outside the members of the Cabinet
Council no one in England, save the King and his Ministers, knew the
object of her mission.

For fifteen days after that event the enemy across the water made no
sign, although from the coast of Kent round about Deal and Dover
could be seen fleets of transports and war-vessels hurrying along the
French coast, and on clear days a thousand telescopes turned towards
the French shore made visible the ominous clusters of moving black
spots above the land, which betokened the presence of the terrible
machines which had wrought such havoc on the towns and fortresses of
Europe.

It was only the calm before the final outburst of the storm. The Tsar
and his allies were marshalling their hosts for the invasion, and
collecting transports and fleets of war-vessels to convoy them. For
several days strong north-westerly gales had made the sea impassable
for the war-balloons, as though to the very last the winds and waves
were conspiring to defend their ancient mistress. But this could not
last for ever.

Sooner or later the winds must sink or change, and then these
war-hawks of the air would wing their flight across the silver
streak