But the police were wiser. They knew that though the firing of the fuse had been but a night's, or even a moment's, work, the laying of the mine had been going on for years; and though the suddenness of the rising, coming as it did on a Sunday, had taken them unawares, it had not found them altogether unprepared, as after-events proved. But on Monday, at mid-day, a sudden reaction set in. The wildest rumours were afloat of some awful danger that assailed not only London, but the very Empire. The fact of the Dumpling's extraordinary resemblance to Napoleon, and of his claim to be the great Napoleon himself, had got abroad, and religious fanatics proclaimed him to be the Beast of the Book of Revelation, the anti-Christ who was to come. Them and their diatribes no sane man heeded; but that something was afoot which directly menaced our very existence as a nation, was believed by all. It was openly stated that the Dumpling and the German Emperor were acting in concert, and that it was from Germany that the arms and the funds which furnished the rioters with the sinews of war had come. The Kaiser was depicted as not only jealous of the popularity of King Edward, but as hating the form of Limited Monarchy which exists in England, and as anxious to establish, first in Europe, and finally all over the world, the autocratic rule which prevails in his own country and in Russia. The Dumpling--so it was openly stated--had succeeded in convincing the Kaiser of the genuineness of his claim to be the re-incarnation of Napoleon. An agreement had been come to between the two men by which it was arranged that, if the Kaiser would assist the Dumpling to obtain supreme power in England, this country should be put under the rule of an Absolute Monarchy even more despotic and more autocratic than that of Russia and Germany. That once achieved, the German Emperor and the Dumpling would combine against France, and re-establish the Monarchy there.