Londoners, indeed, sadly disregard the peril in which they are placed with a hostile force already in their midst--an advance guard of the enemy already on the alert, and but awaiting the landing of their compatriots from the Fatherland. No sane man can to-day declare that, with our maladministered Navy, the invasion of England is impossible. Invasion is not a "scare." It is a hard fact which must be faced, if we are not to fall beneath the "mailed fist." The peril is great, and it is increasing daily. The Germans are strenuous in their endeavours to make every preparation for the successful raid upon our shores. As an instance, in February, 1909, what may well be described as a careful, complete, and systematic photographic survey of the coast between the Tyne and the Tees was conducted, it is stated, by a party of foreigners, three of whom were Germans. Every indentation of the coast, and especially those in the neighbourhood of the dunes about Heselden and Castle Eden, was faithfully recorded by means of the camera, photographs being taken both at low tide and at high tide at various points. Considerable attention was given to the entrances to the Tyne, Tees and Wear, and also to the Harbour entrances at Seaham Harbour and Hartlepool; whilst the positions of the various coast batteries and coast-guard stations were also photographed. Nor did the party, whose operations extended over a period of several weeks, confine their attention solely to the coast line. Railway junctions and bridges near the coast, collieries, and even farm-houses were photographed; in fact, the salient features of the countryside bordering the sea were all included in what was altogether a most exhaustive series of pictures. A certain number of films were developed from day to day at West Hartlepool, something like two hundred pictures in all being dealt with, but these formed only a tithe of the photographs taken, and the undeveloped films, together with the prints from those that had been developed, were despatched direct to Hamburg and Berlin, while some were sent to the head-quarters of the German espionage in Pont Street, London. CHAPTER XII HOW GERMANY FOMENTS STRIFE Ray Raymond had been engaged watching the house of Hermann Hartmann in Pont Street ever since our discovery of the secret store of arms and ammunition down at Chiswick. I had been absent at Devonport, keeping observation upon the movements of two Germans who had once or twice paid visits to Hartmann, and who had evidently received his instructions personally. The two men in question were known to us as spies, for with two other compatriots we had found them, only three months before, busily engaged in preparing a plan of the water-mains of East London, in order that, in case of invasion, some of the German colony could destroy the principal mains and thus deprive half the metropolis of drinking-water.