of London had been
ringing for half an hour this fallacious idea was dispelled from
their minds in a very stern and summary fashion.

Since nightfall there had been no communication with the secret
agents of the League in the various towns of England and Scotland. At
ten o'clock a small company of Cossacks spurred and flogged their
jaded horses up the northern slope of Muswell Hill, on which the Tsar
had fixed his headquarters. Nearly every man was wounded, and the
horses were in the last stages of exhaustion. Their captain was at
once admitted to the presence of the Tsar, and, flinging himself on
the ground before the enraged Autocrat, gasped out the dreadful
tidings that his little company were the sole survivors of the army
of occupation that had been left at Harwich, and which, twelve hours
before, had been thirty thousand strong.

A huge fleet of strange-looking vessels, flying a plain blood-red
flag, had just before four A.M. forced the approaches to the harbour,
sunk every transport and warship with guns that were fired without
flame, or smoke, or report, and whose projectiles shattered
everything that they struck. Immediately afterwards an immense
flotilla of transports had steamed in, and, under the protection of
those terrible guns, had landed a hundred thousand men, all dressed
in the same plain grey uniform, with no facings or ornaments save a
knot of red ribbon at the button-hole, and armed with magazine rifle
and a bayonet and a brace of revolvers. All were English by their
speech, and every man appeared to know exactly what to do with very
few orders from his officers.

This invading force had hunted the Russians out of Harwich like
rabbits out of a warren, while the ships in the harbour had hurled
their shells up into the air so that they fell back to earth on the
retreating army and exploded with frightful effect. The general in
command had at once telegraphed to London for a detachment of
war-balloons and reinforcements, but no response had been received.

After four hours' fighting the Russian army was in full retreat,
while the attacking force was constantly increasing as transport
after transport steamed into the harbour and landed her men. At
Colchester the Russians had been met by another vast army which had
apparently sprung from the earth, dressed and armed exactly as the
invading force was. What its numbers were there was no possibility of
telling.

By this time, too, treachery began to