en a thousand times worse, and so the King, who, assisted by
the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Council, had assumed the control
of the whole city, had directed that order was to be maintained at
any price.

The remains of the army were quartered in the parks under canvas, and
billeted in houses throughout the various districts, in order to
support the police in repressing disorder and protecting property.
Still, in spite of all that could be done, matters were rapidly
coming to a terrible pass. In a week, at the latest, the horses of
the cavalry would be eaten. For a fortnight London had almost lived
upon horse-flesh. In the poorer quarters there was not a dog to be
seen, and a sewer rat was considered a delicacy.

Eight million mouths had made short work of even the vast supplies
that had been hurriedly poured into the city as soon as the invasion
had become a certainty, and absolute starvation was now a matter of a
few days at the outside. There were millions of money lying idle, but
very soon a five-pound note would not buy even a little loaf of
bread.

But famine was by no means the only horror that afflicted London
during those awful days and nights. All round the heights the booming
of cannon sounded incessantly. Huge shells went screaming through the
air overhead to fall and burst amidst some swarming hive of humanity,
scattering death and mutilation where they fell; and high up in the
air the fleet of aerostats perpetually circled, dropping their
fire-shells and blasting cartridges on the dense masses of houses,
until a hundred conflagrations were raging at once in different parts
of the city.

No help had come from outside. Indeed none was to be expected. There
was only one Power in the world that was now capable of coping with
the forces of the victorious League, but its overtures had been
rejected, and neither the King nor any of his advisers had now the
slightest idea as to how those who controlled it would now use it. No
one knew the real strength of the Terrorists, or the Federation which
they professed to control.

All that was known was that, if they choose, they could with their
aerial fleet sweep the war-balloons from the air in a few moments and
destroy the batteries of the besiegers; but they had made no sign
after the rejection of their President's offer to prevent the landing
of the forces of the League on condition that the British Government
accepted the Federation, and resigned its power