four o'clock in the afternoon
Thus the Terrorist fleet , sweeping hither and thither , in wide and ever changing curves , lured the most dangerous assailants of the beleaguered city farther and farther away from the real scene of action , at the very time when they were most urgently needed to support the attacking forces which at that moment were being poured into London . To destroy the air-ships seemed an impossibility , since they could move at five times the speed of the swiftest aerostat , and yet to return to the bombardment of the city was to leave them free to commit what havoc they pleased upon the encampments of the armies of the League . So they were drawn farther and farther away from the beleaguered city , while their agile enemies , still keeping within their six-mile range , evaded their shells , and yet kept up a constant discharge of their own projectiles upon the salient points of the attack on London . By four o'clock in the afternoon all the batteries of the besiegers had been put out of action by the aërial bombardment . It was now a matter of man to man and steel to steel , and so the gage of final battle was accepted , and as dusk began to fall over the beleaguered city , the Russian , French and Italian hosts left their lines , and descended from their vantage ground to the assault on London , where the old Lion at bay was waiting for them with claws bared and teeth grinning defiance . The force which the Tsar had detached to operate against the Federation Army of the North left the headquarters at eleven o'clock , and proceeded in four main divisions by Edmonton , Chingford , Chigwell , and Romford . The aerostats , regulating their speed so as to keep touch with the land force , maintained a position two miles ahead of it at three thousand feet elevation .