five o'clock
The cylinders , which had been exhausted on board the _ Ithuriel _ and her three consorts , were replaced , and then the whole squadron rose into the air from one of the peaks of Rockall Island and winged its way southward to the north-western coast of Spain . They made the Spanish land near Corunna shortly before eight on the following evening , and here the four Russian prisoners were released on the sea-shore and provided with money to take them as far as Valladolid , whence they would be able to communicate with the French military authorities at Toulouse . The Terrorist Squadron then rose once more into the air , ascended to a height of two thousand feet , skirted the Portuguese coast , and then took a south-easterly course over Morocco through one of the passes of the Atlas Mountains , and so across the desert of Sahara and the wilds of Central Africa to Aeria . The first news of the Russian attack on Aberdeen was received in London soon after five o'clock on the afternoon of the 30th , and produced an effect which it is quite beyond the power of language to describe . The first telegram containing the bare announcement of the fact fell like a bolt from the blue on the great Metropolis . It ran as follows : -- Aberdeen , 4.30 P.M. . A large fleet , supposed to be the Russian fleet which broke the blockade of the Baltic on the morning of the 28th , has appeared off the town .