To this Paris returned a polite but uncompromising refusal, and Berlin promptly said that if the expedition sailed with ex-Captain Fargeau on board, a German squadron would stop it and take him off. To this France replied by mobilising the Northern Squadron and ordering the Admiral in command to escort the expedition to sea and protect it against assault at all hazards. Paris also sent Berlin a curt Note intimating that if the threat were carried out it would be taken as a declaration of war. Another Note arrived at Berlin about the same time from Petersburg, informing the German Kaiser that these French and Russian Polar Expeditions formed a joint enterprise on the part of the two countries, and that any act hostile to the one would be considered hostile to the other. The Note also plainly hinted that, considering the tremendous nature of the issues involved by a breach of the international peace, such a trivial matter as the extradition of a person accused of treason could not possibly under the circumstances afford a valid reason for what would be to all intents and purposes an act of war. Within twenty-four hours a powerful French squadron was manoeuvring off the mouth of the Kiel Canal, just out of range of the forts; the French Polar Expedition, with Victor Fargeau on board, was making its way at full speed down the English Channel; the Russian expedition, headed by the _Ivan the Terrible_, passed the North Cape on its way to the coast of Greenland; and four millions of Russians and Frenchmen of all arms were massed on the eastern and western frontier of Germany. At the same moment Kaiser Wilhelm called upon his brother sovereigns of Austria and Italy, and the Triple Alliance stood to arms by land and sea. In a word, the European powder-magazine was lying wide open, and the firing of a single shot would have turned it into a volcano. Still the weeks dragged on, till the tension became almost unendurable. According to an old North of England saying, "One was afraid and t'other daren't start," the risks were so colossal. Great Britain meanwhile kept her own counsel, and went on sweeping up the remnant of the rebel Boers in South Africa. The only precaution she had taken was to place every effective ship in the Navy in commission. It was at this juncture that Europe experienced a new sensation. In one memorable week English, American, French, German, Austrian, and Italian liners from American ports brought packages of the strangest proclamation that ever was issued, and in the mail-bags of the same boats there were similar communications addressed to all the Chancelleries of Europe, and these were of a character to shake the official mind to its very foundations, as in fact they ultimately did.