"Madam, if we are caught here in London, it means surrender." "London, then, is a trap?" "A perfect death-trap." "A perfect death-trap." Margaret repeated the words doubtfully; then, like a flash--"If any army is caught in London, it means surrender!" "Good gracious, madam!" exclaimed the Commander-in-Chief. "Let me feel my way--perhaps it is nonsense. A million people are being shelled--murdered in the East End. Suppose we clear the East End--here, see on this map--from Stratford say, to Aldgate. I could send the women and children to Windsor Forest--they need a holiday, poor things. Any way we could spare that district to the Germans. Then there's the City and this West-Central district up to Charing Cross--a heap of ruins. We could spare all that to the Germans--enough room for them to lose their whole army. They would rush in to capture our main positions on the Hampstead and Sydenham Hills. They would find themselves in a low valley blocked with ruins, under the fire of a thousand guns, every line of escape blocked by our barricades, the river on their left too broad to swim. Then they would try to get back to their camps--and find their camps fortified with their own guns against them!" "Madam!" "My lord, have these Germans any mercy on my poor women and children? I want to capture their army." "We couldn't possibly feed two hundred thousand prisoners." "I want no prisoners, I want rifles for my reserves, Lord Fortescue, rifles and powder, and all the provisions in the German camps. As to the----" "Madam," said Strangford, "a couple of hundred thousand German prisoners sent as a present into the hungry Russian lines might,--well, Russia loves Germany none too well as it is." But Lord Fortescue objected, protesting that "London was full of foreign spies, and that we could never conceal our preparations." "Permit me, madam," cried Strangford, eagerly. "My dear Lord Fortescue, here we have the complete plans for the evacuation of London. I could get the papers sold privately to the French, and we could so shape our preparations as to make the Allies believe we were in full retreat to the Midlands. Afterwards we shall have both Russians and Germans accusing the French of treachery. We shall split the League!" There is no need to tell again the story of our Lady's stratagem. During the five days of its preparation, the armies of the League closing down through the western suburbs, cut off all hope of retreat, all chance of succour. No help could reach us from the outer world, and lost in the valley of death, we could send no word to salve the fear of England, or to restrain despair. So much we lost. Then came the thirty-ninth of the Terror, when the German forces, a hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched into the capital.