fooled away in party strife, French gold
and Russian diplomacy had done their work.

The day after the Conservative Ministry returned to power, France
declared war, and Russia, who had been nominally at war with Britain
for over a month, suddenly took the offensive, and poured her Asiatic
troops into the passes of the Hindu Kush. Two days later, the
defection of Italy from the Triple Alliance told Europe how
accurately Tremayne had gauged the situation in his now historic
speech, and how the month of strange quietude had been spent by the
controllers of the Double Alliance.

The spell was broken at last. After forty years of peace, Europe
plunged into the abyss of war; and from one end of the Continent to
the other nothing was heard but the tramp of vast armies as they
marshalled themselves along the threatened frontiers, and
concentrated at the points of attack and defence.

On all the lines of ocean traffic, steamers were hurrying homeward or
to neutral ports, in the hope of reaching a place of safety before
hostilities actually broke out. Great liners were racing across the
Atlantic either to Britain or America with their precious freights,
while those flying the French flag on the westward voyage prepared to
run the gauntlet of the British cruisers as best they might.

All along the routes to India and the East the same thing was
happening, and not a day passed but saw desperate races between fleet
ocean greyhounds and hostile cruisers, which, as a rule, terminated
in favour of the former, thanks to the superiority of private
enterprise over Government contract-work in turning out ships and
engines.

In Britain the excitement was indescribable. The result of the
general election had cast the final die in favour of immediate war in
concert with the Triple Alliance. The defection of Italy had
thoroughly awakened the popular mind to the extreme gravity of the
situation, and the declaration of war by France had raised the blood
of the nation to fever heat. The magic of battle had instantly
quelled all party differences so far as the bulk of the people was
concerned, and no one talked of anything but the war and its
immediate issues. Men forgot that they belonged to parties, and only
remembered that they were citizens of the same nation.

[Footnote 1: At the period in which the action of the narrative takes
place, her Majesty Queen Victoria had abdicated in favour of the
present Prince of Wales, and was living in