The flagship answered angrily--"Come down!" No man on an open deck could breathe the atmosphere up yonder where that steel fleck hung in the blue of Heaven, no aeroplanes could find supporting air, no gun could be discharged, no missile fired--and who could dare the awful cold of Space! "I will come down," said the _Mary Rose_. Like a meteor she fell until she touched the surf of the white cloud sea, and there lay gently rolling, half submerged, a spindle-shaped bolt of lustrous pearly grey, almost invisible. Every available weapon in the Fleet was trained upon her broadside. She sent another message by aerial telegraph to the flagship. "I have led you out over the Channel so that no harm can be done by a rain of shells. To make myself a better target I shall come within point-blank range." The yacht took up a new position. "Fire!" "I give you a minute to surrender," replied the flagship. "Is there any need for bloodshed? Yield, or I must sink you." "Thanks. I am in perfect safety. Fire!" A ten-inch projectile launched from the flagship exploded midway upon its course. "Try a torpedo," said the yacht. The weapon which would have destroyed a town flew out from the flagship's bows, and was scarcely clear of the fleet before it was blown to pieces. Then the whole fleet attacked, and for some minutes the yacht was lost to sight in the red hurricane of bursting shells. When the air cleared, the echoes still thundered among the clouds, and the yacht rolled violently on huge waves of air. No fortress on earth could have outlived that close bombardment, yet she existed still, and ruthfully the Admiral sent word asking if there were any survivors. "I am coming," said the yacht, "to take position alongside the flagship. I intend no hostile action, but if a single shot is fired, in self-defence I shall destroy the Fleet." In bitter humiliation the Admiral waited, standing in the icy wind on the deck of his flagship. Never before had a British Fleet been captured, never one of our admirals humbled to the point of surrender, and death would have been easier to meet. This steel thunderbolt could outstrip the swiftest cruisers then afloat, could ram the fragile aerial battleships, and was herself impregnable. The Fleet was at her mercy, and the navies of the world were obsolete. She advanced quite slowly, swung on her own length, lay alongside of the _Devastation_, and flung her gangway on the quarter-deck. Then came Brand's messenger, a prince of the blood royal, the Duke of Lancaster, clothed in the Queen's armour, bearing her Majesty's signet, claiming no victory, enforcing no indignities, but with a salute to the white ensign, and a salute to the Admiral of the Fleet, paying the honours of war to a fallen power. At the gangway Brand made the Admiral welcome. * * * * * A tremor went through the _Mary Rose_ as on the Admiral's departure the starboard gangway clanged home against her side.