Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/43

 Many of the houses in the neighbourhood were completely wrecked, and there was not one that did not bear evidence of the storm of bullets that had been rained on the wretched people.

No longer could the fact be disguised that the power of England would be strained to such an extent that it was doubtful whether the strain could be resisted. It was hardly possible that the handful of British in India could hold that country against the hordes of Russia. Everywhere now was seen the awful effects of that fatal policy that had been preached and practiced for years by the Radicals. The British flag was in danger everywhere where it floated. The British statesmen who had placed faith in Russian promises were now proving their value. Russian soldiers were swarming at the door of India, and there, was not a garrison or a fort to keep them back. At home Ireland was in revolt, and the English people, exasperated and embittered by those who, unmindful of her honour, had dragged England into a vortex of ruin, were displaying dangerous ebullition; while surrounding the sea-girt island was a powerful, wary foe, who, impelled by inveterate and hereditary hatred, was watching with tigerish fierceness for a vulnerable point in England's armour. That vulnerable point was found at last, for the news ran like wildfire through the land that—

"10,000 FRENCH TROOPS HAD LANDED IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE."