Events were moving fast. A fanatic named Richards, stalking wild-eyed through the land, broke out into fierce prophetic utterance, mocked and jeered at by many, but followed by rapidly increasing numbers. This strange man entered on a pilgrimage from one to the other of the inland watering places, where symptoms of earthquake had been felt, everywhere inspiring awe and wonder in breasts of thousands. In South London, which he first visited, he was followed by enormous crowds, consisting to a great extent of women. Here, on the Surrey side, there had been a corresponding departure from the normal, for the old forgotten Spa of Bermondsey had developed a new and disturbing energy. While this ancient spring rose in unexampled quantities, and at high temperature, the once famous Spa at Epsom, only some twenty miles away, exhibited a like activity. The argument was irresistible that such far-spread manifestations of the same character must necessarily spring from a common cause. If so, then these mysterious subterranean workings also pointed to the pending evolution of some common result; it might take the shape of some terrific upheaval and convulsion that would reduce the British Isles to their primeval form, submerge them in the sea, or even change the face of Western Europe. Still these were but dark shadows and dread potentialities. Time alone could show whether events would verify such grim forebodings. But, meanwhile, there was one concrete and absorbing fact--the presence in England of the invading foreigner. This, at least, was a stern reality, pressing and predominant. The terrible Three Hundred still held the Fort; the great guns still roared and boomed, the pom-poms worked incessantly. Stiffened forms in increasing numbers strewed Castle Hill; the numbers of the dead and dying mounted daily. The highest military authorities now were constantly engaged in vehement and anxious conference with Major Wardlaw. The discussions, renewed again and again, early and late, had dealt with all aspects of the existing problem, had touched on and passed by many suggested expedients. One project, in particular, had excited much difference of opinion. Urgent advice had been given officially and through the newspapers to call the air-ships into play. Fort Warden, turtle-roofed, was supposed to be entirely bomb-proof, but it was argued that if all the air-ships in England--some 200--were to concentrate above the Fort and pour down bombs and explosives in great quantities, the result could hardly fail to terrify, if not to annihilate, the obstinate defenders. But Edgar Wardlaw shook his head. He alone knew the enormous resisting power that he had built up against this very contingency of warfare.