left of the dock or its contents but a churned-up swamp of muddy
water and shattered stonework.

Then, her errand so far accomplished, the air-ship sped away to the
south-westward, and within an hour she had destroyed in like fashion
the submarine squadron in the Government dock at Portsmouth, and was
winging her way westward to New York with the reply of the King of
England to the President of the Federation.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE EVE OF ARMAGEDDON.

When the news of the destruction of the two divisions of the
submarine squadron reached the headquarters of the League on the
night of the 29th, it would have been difficult to say whether anger
or consternation most prevailed among the leaders. A council of war
was hurriedly summoned to discuss an event which it was impossible to
look upon as anything less than a calamity.

The destruction which had been wrought was of itself disastrous
enough, for it deprived the League of the chief means by which it had
destroyed the British fleet and kept command of the sea. But even
more terrible than the actual destruction was the unexpected
suddenness with which the blow had been delivered.

For five months, that is to say, from the recapture of the _Lucifer_
at Aberdeen, the Tsar and his coadjutors had seen nothing of the
operations of the Terrorists; and now, without a moment's warning,
this apparently omnipresent and yet almost invisible force had struck
once more with irresistible effect, and instantly vanished back into
the mystery out of which it had come.

Who could tell when the next blow would fall, or in what shape the
next assault would be delivered? In the presence of such enemies,
invisible and unreachable, the commanders of the League, to their
rage and disgust, felt themselves, on the eve of their supreme
victory, as impotent as a man armed with a sword would have felt in
front of a Gatling gun.

Consternation naturally led to divided councils. The French and
Italian commanders were for an immediate general assault on London at
all hazards, and the enforcement of terms of surrender at the point
of the sword. The Tsar, on the other hand, insisted on the pursuance
of the original policy of reduction by starvation, as he rightly
considered that, great as the attacking force was, it would be
practically swamped amidst the infuriated millions of the besieged,
and that, even if the assault were successful, the loss of life would
be so enormous that the co