It was all so gallantly done, and so hopeless. Nothing but the instant peril of invasion could have bound the people together while they were starving. The dying realm lived by her surgery, was healed, was saved, but then the price must be paid--and three armies were marching against the Capital. Our Lady's flotilla of rams shattered their covering fleets--but even etheric vessels could not charge battleships of the line without being injured; caught in the bursting magazines, they were racked to pieces. The fleets of the League were destroyed, but of the three rams which survived not one could float again. Four shires, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex, were laid waste, changed into desert where all the water was poisonous, but the armies of the invasion were only delayed until they could add tanks to their transport. Then the armies came against the outer defences of London--a web of hedges, ditches and canals, a labyrinth of suburbs which swallowed brigade after brigade, and sent back only wreckage of lost regiments. Our Imperial army was--ever since the beginning of the Twentieth Century--an army of marksmen--sharp-shooters who mowed down the poor conscripts of Europe, even as the swaths of wheat fell at the harvesting. Behind her chain of fortresses our Lady was arming her people for defensive war; mines, mills, and factories, villages and towns sent their contingents of men to be drilled in her camps; the Midlands seethed with preparation of arms, and explosives; and every weapon capable of use added a man's strength to the great defence. As Margaret called in her outposts, garrison troops came in daily from Halifax, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and were sent with their guns to the front. France and Germany called up their fleet reserves, but the Mediterranean Squadron dealt with the French above Rouen, and turning eastward, caught the Germans in Hanover. So the battle raged for weeks, over land and sea, but the vortex of this dread Armageddon was Margaret's Capital. The French army was in the outer southern suburbs, the Russians held the northern suburbs, the Germans were in the east, and the marshals of the invasion slowly mile by mile forced their way to the westward, closing down upon London. Another week would see the Metropolis surrounded, and the siege commenced. We knew that the end was near. It was the bombardment of the East End which brought the council of war to plead with her Majesty for the desperate policy of retreat. They begged her to withdraw westward, to evacuate London, and, laying the land waste, fall back upon the Midlands. "Fall back!" said Margaret bitterly. "Gentlemen, I cannot understand your military terms, but if that means run--I won't!" "Madam," Lord Fortescue had a valued gift of persuasion. "We want to run away, leading the enemy inland until we catch him in a trap." "That sounds well," said our Lady, pursing her lips doubtfully. "Are the traps always far inland?"