's
onslaught further west.

About July the twentieth more definite news began to arrive. At least
once a day a courier dashed in through the south-west gate, with news
that all must hold themselves ready to meet the enemy by the end of the
month; labour grew more incessant and excitement more feverish.

About six o'clock on the evening of the twenty-ninth, as a long row of
powder barrels was in process of shipping down on the quay, the men who
were rolling them suddenly stopped and listened; the line of onlookers
paused in their comments, and turned round. From the town above came an
outburst of cries, followed by the crash of the alarm from the
church-tower. In two minutes the quay was empty. Out of every passage
that gave on to the main street poured excited men and women, some
hysterically laughing, some swearing, some silent and white as they ran.
For across the bay westwards, on a point beyond Winchelsea, in the still
evening air rose up a stream of smoke shaped like a pine-tree, with a red
smouldering root; and immediately afterwards in answer the Ypres tower
behind the town was pouring out a thick drifting cloud that told to the
watchers on Folkestone cliffs that the dreaded and longed-for foe was in
sight of England.

Then the solemn hours of waiting began to pass. Every day and night there
were watchers, straining their eyes westwards in case the Armada should
attempt to coast along England to force a landing anywhere, and
southwards in case they should pass nearer the French coast on their way
to join the Prince of Parma; but there was little to be seen over that
wide ring of blue sea except single vessels, or now and again
half-a-dozen in company, appearing and fading again on some unknown
quest. The couriers that came in daily could not tell them much; only
that there had been indecisive engagements; that the Spaniards had not
yet attempted a landing anywhere; and that it was supposed that they
would not do so until a union with the force in Flanders had been
effected.

And so four days of the following week passed; then on Thursday, August
the fourth, within an hour or two after sunrise, the solemn booming of
guns began far away to the south-west; but the hours passed; and before
nightfall all was silent again.

The suspense was terrible; all night long there were groups parading the
streets, anxiously conjecturing, now despondently, now cheerfully.

Then once again on the Friday morning a sudden cla