[Illustration: GERMANY'S POINTS OF EMBARKATION]
The Saxons who, disregarding the neutrality of Belgium, had embarked at Antwerp, had seized the whole of the flat-bottomed craft in the Scheldt and the numerous canals, as well as the merchant ships in the port, finding no difficulty in commandeering the amount of tonnage necessary to convey them to the Blackwater and the Crouch.
As hour succeeded hour the panic increased.
It was now also known that, in addition to the various corps who had effected a landing, the German Guards had, by a sudden swoop into the Wash, got ashore at King's Lynn, seized the town, and united their forces with Von Kleppen's corps, who, having landed at Weybourne, were now spread right across Norfolk. This picked corps of Guards was under the command of that distinguished officer, the Duke of Mannheim, while the infantry divisions were under Lieutenant-Generals von Castein and Von Der Decken.
The landing at King's Lynn on Sunday morning had been quite a simple affair. There was nothing whatever to repel them, and they disembarked on the quays and in the docks, watched by the astonished populace. All provisions were seized at shops, while headquarters were established at the municipal buildings, and the German flag hoisted upon the old church, the tower of which was at once used as a signal station.
Old-fashioned people of Lynn peered out of their quiet respectable houses in King Street in utter amazement; but soon, when the German proclamation was posted, the terrible truth was plain.
In half an hour, even before they could realise it, they had been transferred from the protection of the British flag to the militarism of the German.
Ere sundown on Sunday, stalwart grey-coated sentries of the Guards Fusiliers from Potsdam, and the Grenadiers from Berlin were holding the roads at Gayton, East Walton, Narborough, Markham, Fincham, Stradsett, and Stow Bardolph. Therefore on Sunday night, from Spalding on the east, Peterborough, Chatteris, Littleport, Thetford, Diss, and Halesworth, were faced by a huge cavalry screen protecting the landing and repose of the great German Army behind it.
Slowly but carefully the enemy were maturing their plans for the defeat of our defenders and the sack of London.