In Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street, and the Strand the deadly projectiles commenced to fall thickly, wrecking the shops, playing havoc with the public buildings, and sweeping hundreds of men and women into eternity. Nothing could withstand their awful force, and the people, rushing madly about like frightened sheep, felt that this was indeed their last hour. In Ludgate Hill the scene was awful. Shots fell with monotonous regularity, bursting everywhere, and blowing buildings and men into atoms. The French shells were terribly devastating; the reek of mélinite poisoned the air. Shells striking St. Paul's Cathedral brought down the right-hand tower, and crashed into the dome; while others set on fire a long range of huge drapery warehouses behind it, the glare of the roaring flames causing the great black Cathedral to stand out in bold relief. The bombardment had actually commenced! London, the proud Capital of the World, was threatened with destruction! CHAPTER XXXV. LONDON BOMBARDED. The Hand of the Destroyer had reached England's mighty metropolis. The lurid scene was appalling. In the stormy sky the red glare from hundreds of burning buildings grew brighter, and in every quarter flames leaped up and black smoke curled slowly away in increasing volume. The people were unaware of the events that had occurred in Surrey that day. Exhausted, emaciated, and ashen pale, the hungry people had endured every torture. Panic-stricken, they rushed hither and thither in thousands up and down the principal thoroughfares, and as they tore headlong away in this _sauve qui peut_ to the northern suburbs, the weaker fell and were trodden under foot. Men fought for their wives and families, dragging them away out of the range of the enemy's fire, which apparently did not extend beyond the line formed by the Hackney Road, City Road, Pentonville Road, Euston Road, and Westbourne Park. But in that terrible rush to escape many delicate ladies were crushed to death, and numbers of others, with their children, sank exhausted, and perished beneath the feet of the fleeing millions.