Whitehall, a congeries of palaces, a city in itself of unusual grandeur, had never seemed so vast as when it loomed through the cloud of battle. Pale wreaths of smoke girded the walls, columns of dust went up from bursting shells, and little, innumerable spurts of fire lightened the windows, outlined the terraced roofs. A column of red flame waved high above the Admiralty, and, shattered by artillery from beyond the river, the Palace of St. Stephen's crashed down in acres of ruin. One by one the palaces were taken, barrier after barrier was broken through as the brigades of starving Republicans, mad with bloodshed, swept back the Imperial troops. And all through the rooms and corridors, thousands of people went about their business, in the strange English way; the clerks who still worked at their desks or helped to bury the archives and treasures of their departments; the nurses, the surgeons, the chaplains who helped the wounded, gave comfort to the dying, closed the eyelids of the dead; the soldiers who fell back from the windows to fight the advancing flames. It was long past noon when the Queen's orders came--the signal to retire upon her Palace. Building after building was left to the next triumphant rush of the enemy, until the Imperial forces were jammed together at the Foreign Office, guarding the non-combatants, and, under cover of troops from the Palace, began the final movement of retreat. It was but half a mile to the Palace gates along Death's Avenue. Up against the windows of the Council Chamber, nearer and nearer lashed the hurricane of sound--the yells of dying men, the rattle of musketry, scream of machine guns, roar of artillery, crash of falling walls, and, beyond all, the deep dull roar of the conflagration. Within the Council Chamber the great lords of the administration sat still at their table. Before them all lay the body of the old Lord Mendip, the green cloth of the table casting a dreadful glow upon his face. By the left hand there was placed an electric key with covered wires trailing to the floor, and opposite to that two Ministers sat guarding Sir Roderic Scott, a prisoner. Bolt upright in the chair of state, our Lady never moved save once, when she covered her face with one fold of silken gauze from the hood of her violet robe. Sir Myles Strangford at the windows reported from time to time how the battle went. "Shot down like dogs," he cried. "Nurses, civilians, clergy, and broken troops, officers beating the poor fellows with their swords--and the retreat--by George they're falling by hundreds. The whole avenue jammed." For a moment his voice was drowned by the uproar. "The rear guard's clear of the Department!"