silence. With his siren shrieking and his horn tooting, he
was forcing the car through lanes of armed men. They packed
each side of the road. They were banked behind the hedges.
Their camp-fires blazed from every hill-top.

"Your regiment seems to have turned out to a man!" exclaimed
Ford admiringly.

"MY regiment!" snorted the officer. "You've passed through
five regiments already, and there are as many more in the
dark places. They're everywhere!" he cried jubilantly.

"And I thought they were only where you see the camp-fires,"
exclaimed Ford.

"That's what the Germans think," said the officer. "It's
working like a clock," he cried happily. "There hasn't been a
hitch. As soon as they got your warning to Colonel Raglan,
they came down to the coast like a wave, on foot, by trains,
by motors, and at nine o'clock the Government took over all
the railroads. The county regiments, regulars, yeomanry,
territorials, have been spread along this shore for thirty
miles. Down in London the Guards started to Dover and
Brighton two hours ago. The Automobile Club in the first hour
collected two hundred cars and turned them over to the Guards
in Bird Cage Walk. Cody and Grahame-White and eight of his
air men left Hendon an hour ago to reconnoitre the south
coast. Admiral Beatty has started with the Channel Squadron
to head off the German convoy in the North Sea, and the
torpedo destroyers have been sent to lie outside of