“Then they don’t know what has become of the _Narwhal_, and probably think that she has been attacked by an overwhelming force, or blown up by some lucky torpedo. They daren’t go inshore in force for fear of springing a mine, and so you may depend upon it the twelve we have destroyed were scouts, prowling about very slowly and waiting for daylight to examine the coast and find a way into Christmas Harbour. “They must have been in single line, and we had the luck to catch one of the end ones first, and so we sank the lot in the order in which they were floating. I don’t think we can do anything more till daylight except run up and down the coast and keep a sharp look-out to seaward and on the needle.” “I suppose you’re right,” said Alan. “You’d better go and get an hour’s sleep if you can.” “There won’t be much sleep for any of us till to-night,” said Alexis quickly, pointing to the clouds over the island. “Look! the row has begun in the air already.” Alan glanced up and saw a series of intensely bright flashes stream downwards through the clouds, which at the same moment were rent and rolled up into vast shadowy billows by some tremendous concussion of the atmosphere above them. There could be only one explanation of this. The attack on the island had begun from the air, and the flashes were those of the first shots of the aerial bombardment. [Illustration: THE CLOUDS WERE RENT AND ROLLED UP INTO VAST SHADOWY BILLOWS. _Page 122._] What had really happened was this. A fleet of fifty submarine warships, under the command of Michael Lossenski, the eldest son of Orloff Lossenski, who was now Olga Romanoff’s chief adviser in the conduct of the war that she had commenced with the Aerians, had reached the northern coast of Kerguelen Island about four o’clock in the morning in order to co-operate with an aerial squadron of fifteen vessels led by the _Revenge_, under the command, nominally, of Lossenski’s second son Boris, but really of Olga herself. As Alexis had surmised, the twelve vessels destroyed by the _Narwhal_ were scouts sent out to, if possible, feel their way to the entrance of Christmas Harbour, which was known to be the headquarters of the station. These were to have returned to the fleet with all the intelligence they could get as to bearings and soundings, and the position of mines and the defending fleet. Then at daybreak, that is to say about eight o’clock, the whole squadron was to have advanced to the entrance to the harbour, ramming any of the defenders who barred their way, and then, after sending a swarm of torpedoes into the mouth of the bay to explode the mines and blow up any submarine defences that might exist, to have made a rush for the inner bay at the same time that the air-ships engaged the land defences.