nglish blood in my veins, I have always
looked upon the British race as the real bulwark of freedom, and I
rejoice that the King of England has not permitted either tradition
or personal feeling to stand in the way of the last triumph of the
Anglo-Saxon race.

"As long as the English language is spoken your Majesty's name will
be held in greater honour for this sacrifice which you make to-day,
than will that of any other English king for the greatest triumph of
arms ever achieved in the history of your country.

"I must now take my leave, for I must be in New York to-morrow night.
I have your word that I shall not be watched or followed after I
leave here. Hold the city for six days more at all costs, and on the
seventh at the latest the siege shall be raised and the enemies of
Britain destroyed in their own entrenchments."

So saying, the envoy of the Federation bowed once more to the King
and the astonished members of his Council, and was escorted to the
door.

Once in the street he strode away rapidly through Parliament Street
and the Strand, then up Drury Lane, until he reached the door of a
mean-looking house in a squalid court, and entering this with a
latch-key, disappeared.

Three hours later a Russian soldier of the line, wearing an almost
imperceptible knot of red ribbon in one of the button-holes of his
tunic, passed through the Russian lines on Hampstead Heath
unchallenged by the sentries, and made his way northward to Northaw
Wood, which he reached soon after nightfall.

Within half an hour the _Ithuriel_ rose from the midst of a thick
clump of trees like a grey shadow rising into the night, and darted
southward and upward at such a speed that the keenest eyes must soon
have lost sight of her from the earth.

She passed over the beleaguered city at a height of nearly ten
thousand feet, and then swept sharply round to the eastward. She
stopped immediately over the lights of Sheerness, and descended to
within a thousand feet of the dock, in which could be seen the
detachment of the French submarine vessels lying waiting to be sent
on their next errand of destruction.

As soon as those on board her had made out the dock clearly she
ascended a thousand feet and went about half a mile to the southward.
From that position she poured a rapid hail of shells into the dock,
which was instantly transformed into a cavity vomiting green flame
and fragments of iron and human bodies. In five minutes nothing was