








THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE

BY

FRANK R. STOCKTON



Author of "The Lady or the Tiger," "Rudder Grange,"
    "The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs.
        Aleshine," "What Might Have Been
             Expected," etc., etc.




THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE.




In the spring of a certain year, not far from the close of the
nineteenth century, when the political relations between the United
States and Great Britain became so strained that careful observers on
both sides of the Atlantic were forced to the belief that a serious
break in these relations might be looked for at any time, the fishing
schooner Eliza Drum sailed from a port in Maine for the banks of
Newfoundland.

It was in this year that a new system of protection for American
fishing vessels had been adopted in Washington.  Every fleet of these
vessels was accompanied by one or more United States cruisers, which
remained on the fishing grounds, not only for the purpose of warning
American craft who might approach too near the three-mile limit, but
also to overlook the action of the British naval vessels on the coast,
and to interfere, at least by protest, with such seizures of American
fishing boats as might appear to be unjust.  In the opinion of all
persons of sober judgment, there was nothing in the condition of
affairs at this time so dangerous to the peace of the two countries as
the presence of these American cruisers in the fishing waters.

The Eliza Drum was late in her arrival on the fishing grounds, and
having, under orders from Washington, reported to the commander of the
Lennehaha, the United States vessel in charge at that place, her
captain and crew went vigorously to work to make up for lost time.
They worked so vigorously, and with eyes so single to the catching of
fish, that on the morning of the day after their arrival, they were
hauling up cod at a point which, according to the nationality of the
calculator, might be two and three-quarters or three and one-quarter
miles from the Canadian coast.

In consequence of this inattention to the apparent extent of the marine
mile, the Eliza Drum, a little before noon, was overhauled and seized
by the British cruiser, Dog Star.  A few miles away the Lennehaha had
perceived the dangerous position of the Eliza Drum, and had started
toward her to warn her to take a less doubtful position.  But before
she arrived the capture had taken place.  When he reached the spot
where the Eliza Drum had been fishing, the commander of the Lennehaha
made an observation of the distance from the shore, and calculated it
to be more than three miles.  When he sent an officer in a boat to the
Dog Star to state the result of his computations, the captain of the
British vessel replied that he was satisfied the distance was less than
three miles, and that he was now about to take the Eliza Drum into port.

On receiving this information, the commander of the Lennehaha steamed
closer to the Dog Star, and informed her captain, by means of a
speaking-trumpet, that if he took the Eliza Drum into a Canadian port,
he would first have to sail over his ship.  To this the captain of the
Dog Star replied that he did not in the least object to sail over the
Lennehaha, and proceeded to put a prize crew on board the fishing
vessel.

At this juncture the captain of the Eliza Drum ran up a large American
flag; in five minutes afterward the captain of the prize crew hauled it
down; in less than ten minutes after this the Lennehaha and the Dog
Star were blazing at each other with their bow guns.  The spark had
been struck.

The contest was not a long one.  The Dog Star was of much greater
tonnage and heavier armament than her antagonist, and early in the
afternoon she steamed for St. John's, taking with her as prizes both
the Eliza Drum and the Lennehaha.

All that night, at every point in the United States which was reached
by telegraph, there burned a smothered fire; and the next morning, when
the regular and extra editions of the newspapers were poured out upon
the land, the fire burst into a roaring blaze.  From lakes to gulf,
from ocean to ocean, on mountain and plain, in city and prairie, it
roared and blazed.  Parties, sections, politics, were all forgotten.
Every American formed part of an electric system; the same fire flashed
into every soul.  No matter what might be thought on the morrow, or in
the coming days which might bring better understanding, this day the
unreasoning fire blazed and roared.

With morning newspapers in their hands, men rushed from the
breakfast-tables into the streets to meet their fellow-men.  What was
it that they should do?

Detailed accounts of the affair came rapidly, but there was nothing in
them to quiet the national indignation; the American flag had been
hauled down by Englishmen, an American naval vessel had been fired into
and captured; that was enough!  No matter whether the Eliza Drum was
within the three-mile limit or not!  No matter which vessel fired
first!  If it were the Lennehaha, the more honour to her; she ought to
have done it!  From platform, pulpit, stump, and editorial office came
one vehement, passionate shout directed toward Washington.

Congress was in session, and in its halls the fire roared louder and
blazed higher than on mountain or plain, in city or prairie.  No member
of the Government, from President to page, ventured to oppose the
tempestuous demands of the people.  The day for argument upon the
exciting question had been a long weary one, and it had gone by in less
than a week the great shout of the people was answered by a declaration
of war against Great Britain.

When this had been done, those who demanded war breathed easier, but
those who must direct the war breathed harder.

It was indeed a time for hard breathing, but the great mass of the
people perceived no reason why this should be.  Money there was in vast
abundance.  In every State well-drilled men, by thousands, stood ready
for the word to march, and the military experience and knowledge given
by a great war was yet strong upon the nation.

To the people at large the plan of the war appeared a very obvious and
a very simple one.  Canada had given the offence, Canada should be made
to pay the penalty.  In a very short time, one hundred thousand, two
hundred thousand, five hundred thousand men, if necessary, could be
made ready for the invasion of Canada.  From platform, pulpit, stump,
and editorial office came the cry:  "On to Canada!"

At the seat of Government, however, the plan of the war did not appear
so obvious, so simple.  Throwing a great army into Canada was all well
enough, and that army would probably do well enough; but the question
which produced hard breathing in the executive branch of the Government
was the immediate protection of the sea-coast, Atlantic, Gulf, and even
Pacific.

In a storm of national indignation war had been declared against a
power which at this period of her history had brought up her naval
forces to a point double in strength to that of any other country in
the world.  And this war had been declared by a nation which,
comparatively speaking, possessed no naval strength at all.

For some years the United States navy had been steadily improving, but
this improvement was not sufficient to make it worthy of reliance at
this crisis.  As has been said, there was money enough, and every
ship-yard in the country could be set to work to build ironclad
men-of-war: but it takes a long time to build ships, and England's navy
was afloat.  It was the British keel that America had to fear.

By means of the continental cables it was known that many of the
largest mail vessels of the British transatlantic lines, which had been
withdrawn upon the declaration of war, were preparing in British ports
to transport troops to Canada.  It was not impossible that these great
steamers might land an army in Canada before an American army could be
organized and marched to that province.  It might be that the United
States would be forced to defend her borders, instead of invading those
of the enemy.

In every fort and navy-yard all was activity; the hammering of iron
went on by day and by night; but what was to be done when the great
ironclads of England hammered upon our defences?  How long would it be
before the American flag would be seen no more upon the high seas?

It is not surprising that the Government found its position one of
perilous responsibility.  A wrathful nation expected of it more than it
could perform.

All over the country, however, there were thoughtful men, not connected
with the Government, who saw the perilous features of the situation;
and day by day these grew less afraid of being considered traitors, and
more willing to declare their convictions of the country's danger.
Despite the continuance of the national enthusiasm, doubts,
perplexities, and fears began to show themselves.

In the States bordering upon Canada a reactionary feeling became
evident.  Unless the United States navy could prevent England from
rapidly pouring into Canada, not only her own troops, but perhaps those
of allied nations, these Northern States might become the scene of
warfare, and whatever the issue of the contest, their lands might be
ravished, their people suffer.

From many quarters urgent demands were now pressed upon the Government.
From the interior there were clamours for troops to be massed on the
Northern frontier, and from the seaboard cities there came a cry for
ships that were worthy to be called men-of-war,--ships to defend the
harbours and bays, ships to repel an invasion by sea.  Suggestions were
innumerable.  There was no time to build, it was urged; the Government
could call upon friendly nations.  But wise men smiled sadly at these
suggestions; it was difficult to find a nation desirous of a war with
England.

In the midst of the enthusiasms, the fears, and the suggestions, came
reports of the capture of American merchantmen by fast British
cruisers.  These reports made the American people more furious, the
American Government more anxious.

Almost from the beginning of this period of national turmoil, a party
of gentlemen met daily in one of the large rooms in a hotel in New
York.  At first there were eleven of these men, all from the great
Atlantic cities, but their number increased by arrivals from other
parts of the country, until at last they, numbered twenty-three.  These
gentlemen were all great capitalists, and accustomed to occupying
themselves with great enterprises.  By day and by night they met
together with closed doors, until they had matured the scheme which
they had been considering.  As soon as this work was done, a committee
was sent to Washington, to submit a plan to the Government.

These twenty-three men had formed themselves into a Syndicate, with the
object of taking entire charge of the war between the United States and
Great Britain.

This proposition was an astounding one, but the Government was obliged
to treat it with respectful consideration.  The men who offered it were
a power in the land,--a power which no government could afford to
disregard.

The plan of the Syndicate was comprehensive, direct, and simple.  It
offered to assume the entire control and expense of the war, and to
effect a satisfactory peace within one year.  As a guarantee that this
contract would be properly performed, an immense sum of money would be
deposited in the Treasury at Washington.  Should the Syndicate be
unsuccessful, this sum would be forfeited, and it would receive no pay
for anything it had done.

The sum to be paid by the Government to the Syndicate, should it bring
the war to a satisfactory conclusion, would depend upon the duration of
hostilities.  That is to say, that as the shorter the duration of the
war, the greater would be the benefit to the country, therefore, the
larger must be the pay to the Syndicate.  According to the proposed
contract, the Syndicate would receive, if the war should continue for a
year, one-quarter the sum stipulated to be paid if peace should be
declared in three months.

If at any time during the conduct of the war by the Syndicate an
American seaport should be taken by the enemy, or a British force
landed on any point of the seacoast, the contract should be considered
at an end, and security and payment forfeited.  If any point on the
northern boundary of the United States should be taken and occupied by
the enemy, one million dollars of the deposited security should be
forfeited for every such occupation, but the contract should continue.

It was stipulated that the land and naval forces of the United States
should remain under the entire control of the Government, but should be
maintained as a defensive force, and not brought into action unless any
failure on the part of the Syndicate should render such action
necessary.

The state of feeling in governmental circles, and the evidences of
alarm and distrust which were becoming apparent in Congress and among
the people, exerted an important influence in favour of the Syndicate.
The Government caught at its proposition, not as if it were a straw,
but as if it were a life-raft.  The men who offered to relieve the
executive departments of their perilous responsibilities were men of
great ability, prominent positions, and vast resources, whose vast
enterprises had already made them known all over the globe.  Such men
were not likely to jeopardize their reputations and fortunes in a case
like this, unless they had well-founded reasons for believing that they
would be successful.  Even the largest amount stipulated to be paid
them in case of success would be less than the ordinary estimates for
the military and naval operations which had been anticipated; and in
case of failure, the amount forfeited would go far to repair the losses
which might be sustained by the citizens of the various States.

At all events, should the Syndicate be allowed to take immediate
control of the war, there would be time to put the army and navy,
especially the latter, in better condition to carry on the contest in
case of the failure of the Syndicate.  Organization and construction
might still go on, and, should it be necessary, the army and navy could
step into the contest fresh and well prepared.

All branches of the Government united in accepting the offer of the
Syndicate.  The contract was signed, and the world waited to see what
would happen next.

The influence which for years had been exerted by the interests
controlled by the men composing the Syndicate, had its effect in
producing a popular confidence in the power of the members of the
Syndicate to conduct a war as successfully as they had conducted other
gigantic enterprises.  Therefore, although predictions of disaster came
from many quarters, the American public appeared willing to wait with
but moderate impatience for the result of this novel undertaking.

The Government now proceeded to mass troops at important points on the
northern frontier; forts were supplied with men and armaments, all
coast defences were put in the best possible condition, the navy was
stationed at important ports, and work at the shipyards went on.  But
without reference to all this, the work of the Syndicate immediately
began.

This body of men were of various politics and of various pursuits in
life.  But politics were no more regarded in the work they had
undertaken than they would have been in the purchase of land or of
railroad iron.  No manifestoes of motives and intentions were issued to
the public.  The Syndicate simply went to work.  There could be no
doubt that early success would be a direct profit to it, but there
could also be no doubt that its success would be a vast benefit and
profit, not only to the business enterprises in which these men were
severally engaged, but to the business of the whole country.  To save
the United States from a dragging war, and to save themselves from the
effects of it, were the prompting motives for the formation of the
Syndicate.

Without hesitation, the Syndicate determined that the war in which it
was about to engage should be one of defence by means of offence.  Such
a war must necessarily be quick and effective; and with all the force
of their fortunes, their minds, and their bodies, its members went to
work to wage this war quickly and effectively.

All known inventions and improvements in the art of war had been
thoroughly considered by the Syndicate, and by the eminent specialists
whom it had enlisted in its service.  Certain recently perfected
engines of war, novel in nature, were the exclusive property of the
Syndicate.  It was known, or surmised, in certain quarters that the
Syndicate had secured possession of important warlike inventions; but
what they were and how they acted was a secret carefully guarded and
protected.

The first step of the Syndicate was to purchase from the United States
Government ten war-vessels.  These were of medium size and in good
condition, but they were of an old-fashioned type, and it had not been
considered expedient to put them in commission.  This action caused
surprise and disappointment in many quarters.  It had been supposed
that the Syndicate, through its agents scattered all over the world,
would immediately acquire, by purchase or lease, a fleet of fine
ironclads culled from various maritime powers.  But the Syndicate
having no intention of involving, or attempting to involve, other
countries in this quarrel, paid no attention to public opinion, and
went to work in its own way.

Its vessels, eight of which were on the Atlantic coast and two on the
Pacific, were rapidly prepared for the peculiar service in which they
were to be engaged.  The resources of the Syndicate were great, and in
a very short time several of their vessels, already heavily plated with
steel, were furnished with an additional outside armour, formed of
strips of elastic steel, each reaching from the gunwales nearly to the
surface of the water.  These strips, about a foot wide, and placed an
inch or two apart, were each backed by several powerful air-buffers, so
that a ball striking one or more of them would be deprived of much of
its momentum.  The experiments upon the steel spring and buffers
adopted by the Syndicate showed that the force of the heaviest
cannonading was almost deadened by the powerful elasticity of this
armour.

The armament of each vessel consisted of but one gun, of large calibre,
placed on the forward deck, and protected by a bomb-proof covering.
Each vessel was manned by a captain and crew from the merchant service,
from whom no warlike duties were expected.  The fighting operations
were in charge of a small body of men, composed of two or three
scientific specialists, and some practical gunners and their
assistants.  A few bomb-proof canopies and a curved steel deck
completed the defences of the vessel.

Besides equipping this little navy, the Syndicate set about the
construction of certain sea-going vessels of an extraordinary kind.  So
great were the facilities at its command, and so thorough and complete
its methods, that ten or a dozen ship-yards and foundries were set to
work simultaneously to build one of these ships.  In a marvellously
short time the Syndicate possessed several of them ready for action.

These vessels became technically known as "crabs." They were not large,
and the only part of them which projected above the water was the
middle of an elliptical deck, slightly convex, and heavily mailed with
ribs of steel.  These vessels were fitted with electric engines of
extraordinary power, and were capable of great speed.  At their bows,
fully protected by the overhanging deck, was the machinery by which
their peculiar work was to be accomplished.  The Syndicate intended to
confine itself to marine operations, and for the present it was
contented with these two classes of vessels.

The armament for each of the large vessels, as has been said before,
consisted of a single gun of long range, and the ammunition was
confined entirely to a new style of projectile, which had never yet
been used in warfare.  The material and construction of this projectile
were known only to three members of the Syndicate, who had invented and
perfected it, and it was on account of their possession of this secret
that they had been invited to join that body.

This projectile was not, in the ordinary sense of the word, an
explosive, and was named by its inventors, "The Instantaneous Motor."
It was discharged from an ordinary cannon, but no gunpowder or other
explosive compound was used to propel it.  The bomb possessed, in
itself the necessary power of propulsion, and the gun was used merely
to give it the proper direction.

These bombs were cylindrical in form, and pointed at the outer end.
They were filled with hundreds of small tubes, each radiating outward
from a central line.  Those in the middle third of the bomb pointed
directly outward, while those in its front portion were inclined
forward at a slight angle, and those in the rear portion backward at
the same angle.  One tube at the end of the bomb, and pointing directly
backward, furnished the motive power.

Each of these tubes could exert a force sufficient to move an ordinary
train of passenger cars one mile, and this power could be exerted
instantaneously, so that the difference in time in the starting of a
train at one end of the mile and its arrival at the other would not be
appreciable.  The difference in concussionary force between a train
moving at the rate of a mile in two minutes, or even one minute, and
another train which moves a mile in an instant, can easily be imagined.

In these bombs, those tubes which might direct their powers downward or
laterally upon the earth were capable of instantaneously propelling
every portion of solid ground or rock to a distance of two or three
hundred yards, while the particles of objects on the surface of the
earth were instantaneously removed to a far greater distance.  The tube
which propelled the bomb was of a force graduated according to
circumstances, and it would carry a bomb to as great a distance as
accurate observation for purposes of aim could be made.  Its force was
brought into action while in the cannon by means of electricity while
the same effect was produced in the other tubes by the concussion of
the steel head against the object aimed at.

What gave the tubes their power was the jealously guarded secret.

The method of aiming was as novel as the bomb itself.  In this process
nothing depended on the eyesight of the gunner; the personal equation
was entirely eliminated.  The gun was so mounted that its direction was
accurately indicated by graduated scales; there was an instrument which
was acted upon by the dip, rise, or roll of the vessel, and which
showed at any moment the position of the gun with reference to the
plane of the sea-surface.

Before the discharge of the cannon an observation was taken by one of
the scientific men, which accurately determined the distance to the
object to be aimed at, and reference to a carefully prepared
mathematical table showed to what points on the graduated scales the
gun should be adjusted, and the instant that the that the muzzle of the
cannon was in the position that it was when the observation was taken,
a button was touched and the bomb was instantaneously placed on the
spot aimed at.  The exactness with which the propelling force of the
bomb could be determined was an important factor in this method of
aiming.

As soon as three of the spring-armoured vessels and five "crabs" were
completed, the Syndicate felt itself ready to begin operations.  It was
indeed time.  The seas had been covered with American and British
merchantmen hastening homeward, or to friendly ports, before the actual
commencement of hostilities.  But all had not been fortunate enough to
reach safety within the limits of time allowed, and several American
merchantmen had been already captured by fast British cruisers.

The members of the Syndicate well understood that if a war was to be
carried on as they desired, they must strike the first real blow.
Comparatively speaking, a very short time had elapsed since the
declaration of war, and the opportunity to take the initiative was
still open.

It was in order to take this initiative that, in the early hours of a
July morning, two of the Syndicate's armoured vessels, each accompanied
by a crab, steamed out of a New England port, and headed for the point
on the Canadian coast where it had been decided to open the campaign.

The vessels of the Syndicate had no individual names.  The
spring-armoured ships were termed "repellers," and were numbered, and
the crabs were known by the letters of the alphabet.  Each repeller was
in charge of a Director of Naval Operations; and the whole naval force
of the Syndicate was under the command of a Director-in-chief.  On this
momentous occasion this officer was on board of Repeller No. 1, and
commanded the little fleet.

The repellers had never been vessels of great speed, and their present
armour of steel strips, the lower portion of which was frequently under
water, considerably retarded their progress; but each of them was taken
in tow by one of the swift and powerful crabs, and with this assistance
they made very good time, reaching their destination on the morning of
the second day.

It was on a breezy day, with a cloudy sky, and the sea moderately
smooth, that the little fleet of the Syndicate lay to off the harbour
of one of the principal Canadian seaports.  About five miles away the
headlands on either side of the mouth of the harbour could be plainly
seen.  It had been decided that Repeller No. 1 should begin operations.
Accordingly, that vessel steamed about a mile nearer the harbour,
accompanied by Crab A.  The other repeller and crab remained in their
first position, ready to act in case they should be needed.

The approach of two vessels, evidently men-of-war, and carrying the
American flag, was perceived from the forts and redoubts at the mouth
of the harbour, and the news quickly spread to the city and to the
vessels in port.  Intense excitement ensued on land and water, among
the citizens of the place as well as its defenders.  Every man who had
a post of duty was instantly at it; and in less than half an hour the
British man-of-war Scarabaeus, which had been lying at anchor a short
distance outside the harbour, came steaming out to meet the enemy.
There were other naval vessels in port, but they required more time to
be put in readiness for action.

As soon as the approach of Scarabaeus was perceived by Repeller No. 1,
a boat bearing a white flag was lowered from that vessel and was
rapidly rowed toward the British ship.  When the latter saw the boat
coming she lay to, and waited its arrival.  A note was delivered to the
captain of the Scarabaeus, in which it was stated that the Syndicate,
which had undertaken on the part of the United States the conduct of
the war between that country and Great Britain, was now prepared to
demand the surrender of this city with its forts and defences and all
vessels within its harbour, and, as a first step, the immediate
surrender of the vessel to the commander of which this note was
delivered.

The overwhelming effrontery of this demand caused the commander of the
Scarabaeus to doubt whether he had to deal with a raving lunatic or a
blustering fool; but he informed the person in charge of the
flag-of-truce boat, that he would give him fifteen minutes in which to
get back to his vessel, and that he would then open fire upon that
craft.

The men who rowed the little boat were not men-of-war's men, and were
unaccustomed to duties of this kind.  In eight minutes they had reached
their vessel, and were safe on board.

Just seven minutes afterward the first shot came from the Scarabaeus.
It passed over Repeller No. 1, and that vessel, instead of replying,
immediately steamed nearer her adversary.  The Director-in-chief
desired to determine the effect of an active cannonade upon the new
armour, and therefore ordered the vessel placed in such a position that
the Englishman might have the best opportunity for using it as a target.

The Scarabaeus lost no time in availing herself of the facilities
offered.  She was a large and powerful ship, with a heavy armament;
and, soon getting the range of the Syndicate's vessel, she hurled ball
after ball upon her striped side.  Repeller No. 1 made no reply, but
quietly submitted to the terrible bombardment.  Some of the great shot
jarred her from bow to stern, but not one of them broke a steel spring,
nor penetrated the heavy inside plates.

After half an hour of this, work the Director-in-chief became satisfied
that the new armour had well acquitted itself in the severe trial to
which it had been subjected.  Some of the air-buffers had been
disabled, probably on account of faults in their construction, but
these could readily be replaced, and no further injury had been done
the vessel.  It was not necessary, therefore, to continue the
experiment any longer, and besides, there was danger that the
Englishman, perceiving that his antagonist did not appear to be
affected by his fire, would approach closer and endeavour to ram her.
This was to be avoided, for the Scarabaeus was a much larger vessel
than Repeller No. 1, and able to run into the latter and sink her by
mere preponderance of weight.

It was therefore decided to now test the powers of the crabs.  Signals
were made from Repeller No. 1 to Crab A, which had been lying with the
larger vessel between it and the enemy.  These signals were made by
jets of dense black smoke, which were ejected from a small pipe on the
repeller.  These slender columns of smoke preserved their cylindrical
forms for some moments, and were visible at a great distance by day or
night, being illumined in the latter case by electric light.  The
length and frequency of these jets were regulated by an instrument in
the Director's room.  Thus, by means of long and short puffs, with the
proper use of intervals, a message could be projected into the air as a
telegraphic instrument would mark it upon paper.

In this manner Crab A was ordered to immediately proceed to the attack
of the Scarabaeus.  The almost submerged vessel steamed rapidly from
behind her consort, and made for the British man-of-war.

When the latter vessel perceived the approach of this turtle-backed
object, squirting little jets of black smoke as she replied to the
orders from the repeller, there was great amazement on board.  The crab
had not been seen before, but as it came rapidly on there was no time
for curiosity or discussion, and several heavy guns were brought to
bear upon it.  It was difficult to hit a rapidly moving flat object
scarcely above the surface of the water; and although several shot
struck the crab, they glanced off without in the least interfering with
its progress.

Crab A soon came so near the Scarabaeus that it was impossible to
depress the guns of the latter so as to strike her.  The great vessel
was, therefore, headed toward its assailant, and under a full head of
steam dashed directly at it to run it down.  But the crab could turn as
upon a pivot, and shooting to one side allowed the surging man-of-war
to pass it.

Perceiving instantly that it would be difficult to strike this nimble
and almost submerged adversary, the commander of the Scarabaeus thought
it well to let it alone for the present, and to bear down with all
speed upon the repeller.  But it was easier to hit the crab than to
leave it behind.  It was capable of great speed, and, following the
British vessel, it quickly came up with her.

The course of the Scarabaeus was instantly changed, and every effort
was made to get the vessel into a position to run down the crab.  But
this was not easy for so large a ship, and Crab A seemed to have no
difficulty in keeping close to her stern.

Several machine-guns, especially adopted for firing at torpedo-boats or
any hostile craft which might be discovered close to a vessel, were now
brought to bear upon the crab, and ball after ball was hurled at her.
Some of these struck, but glanced off without penetrating her tough
armour.

These manoeuvres had not continued long, when the crew of the crab was
ready to bring into action the peculiar apparatus of that peculiar
craft.  An enormous pair of iron forceps, each massive limb of which
measured twelve feet or more in length, was run out in front of the
crab at a depth of six or eight feet below the surface.  These forceps
were acted upon by an electric engine of immense power, by which they
could be shut, opened, projected, withdrawn, or turned and twisted.

The crab darted forward, and in the next instant the great teeth of her
pincers were fastened with a tremendous grip upon the rudder and
rudder-post of the Scarabaeus.

Then followed a sudden twist, which sent a thrill through both vessels;
a crash; a backward jerk; the snapping of a chain; and in a moment the
great rudder, with half of the rudder-post attached, was torn from the
vessel, and as the forceps opened it dropped to leeward and hung
dangling by one chain.

Again the forceps opened wide; again there was a rush; and this time
the huge jaws closed upon the rapidly revolving screw-propeller.  There
was a tremendous crash, and the small but massive crab turned over so
far that for an instant one of its sides was plainly visible above the
water.  The blades of the propeller were crushed and shivered; those
parts of the steamer's engines connecting with the propeller-shaft were
snapped and rent apart, while the propeller-shaft itself was broken by
the violent stoppage.

The crab, which had quickly righted, now backed, still holding the
crushed propeller in its iron grasp, and as it moved away from the
Scarabaeus, it extracted about forty feet of its propeller-shaft; then,
opening its massive jaws, it allowed the useless mass of iron to drop
to the bottom of the sea.

Every man on board the Scarabaeus was wild with amazement and
excitement.  Few could comprehend what had happened, but this very
quickly became evident.  So far as motive power was concerned, the
Scarabaeus was totally, disabled.  She could not direct her course, for
her rudder was gone, her propeller was gone, her engines were useless,
and she could do no more than float as wind or tide might move her.
Moreover, there was a jagged hole in her stern where the shaft had
been, and through this the water was pouring into the vessel.  As a
man-of-war the Scarabaeus was worthless.

Orders now came fast from Repeller No. 1, which had moved nearer to the
scene of conflict.  It was to be supposed that the disabled ship was
properly furnished with bulk-heads, so that the water would penetrate
no farther than the stern compartment, and that, therefore, she was in
no danger of sinking.  Crab A was ordered to make fast to the bow of
the Scarabaeus, and tow her toward two men-of-war who were rapidly
approaching from the harbour.

This proceeding astonished the commander and officers of the Scarabaeus
almost as much as the extraordinary attack which had been made upon
their ship.  They had expected a demand to surrender and haul down
their flag; but the Director-in-chief on board Repeller No. 1 was of
the opinion that with her propeller extracted it mattered little what
flag she flew.  His work with the Scarabaeus was over; for it had been
ordered by the Syndicate that its vessels should not encumber
themselves with prizes.

Towed by the powerful crab, which apparently had no fear that its
disabled adversary might fire upon it, the Scarabaeus moved toward the
harbour, and when it had come within a quarter of a mile of the
foremost British vessel, Crab A cast off and steamed back to Repeller
No. 1.

The other English vessels soon came up, and each lay to and sent a boat
to the Scarabaeus.  After half an hour's consultation, in which the
amazement of those on board the damaged vessel was communicated to the
officers and crews of her two consorts, it was determined that the
smaller of these should tow the disabled ship into port, while the
other one, in company with a man-of-war just coming out of the harbour,
should make an attack upon Repeller No. 1.

It had been plainly proved that ordinary shot and shell had no effect
upon this craft; but it had not been proved that she could withstand
the rams of powerful ironclads.  If this vessel, that apparently
carried no guns, or, at least, had used none, could be crushed,
capsized, sunk, or in any way put out of the fight, it was probable
that the dangerous submerged nautical machine would not care to remain
in these waters.  If it remained it must be destroyed by torpedoes.

Signals were exchanged between the two English vessels, and in a very
short time they were steaming toward the repeller.  It was a dangerous
thing for two vessels of their size to come close enough together for
both to ram an enemy at the same time, but it was determined to take
the risks and do this, if possible; for the destruction of the repeller
was obviously the first duty in hand.

As the two men-of-war rapidly approached Repeller No. 1, they kept up a
steady fire upon her; for if in this way they could damage her, the
easier would be their task.  With a firm reliance upon the efficacy of
the steel-spring armour, the Director-in-chief felt no fear of the
enemy's shot and shell; but he was not at all willing that his vessel
should be rammed, for the consequences would probably be disastrous.
Accordingly he did not wait for the approach of the two vessels, but
steering seaward, he signalled for the other crab.

When Crab B made its appearance, puffing its little black jets of
smoke, as it answered the signals of the Director-in-chief, the
commanders of the two British vessels were surprised.  They had
imagined that there was only one of these strange and terrible enemies,
and had supposed that she would be afraid to make her peculiar attack
upon one of them, because while doing so she would expose herself to
the danger of being run down by the other.  But the presence of two of
these almost submerged engines of destruction entirely changed the
situation.

But the commanders of the British ships were brave men.  They had
started to run down the strangely armoured American craft, and run her
down they would, if they could.  They put on more steam, and went ahead
at greater speed.  In such a furious onslaught the crabs might not dare
to attack them.

But they did not understand the nature nor the powers of these enemies.
In less than twenty minutes Crab A had laid hold of one of the
men-of-war, and Crab B of the other.  The rudders of both were
shattered and torn away; and while the blades of one propeller were
crushed to pieces, the other, with nearly half its shaft, was drawn out
and dropped into the ocean.  Helplessly the two men-of-war rose and
fell upon the waves.

In obedience to orders from the repeller, each crab took hold of one of
the disabled vessels, and towed it near the mouth of the harbour, where
it was left.

The city was now in a state of feverish excitement, which was
intensified by the fact that a majority of the people did not
understand what had happened, while those to whom this had been made
plain could not comprehend why such a thing should have been allowed to
happen.  Three of Her Majesty's ships of war, equipped and ready for
action, had sailed out of the harbour, and an apparently insignificant
enemy, without firing a gun, had put them into such a condition that
they were utterly unfit for service, and must be towed into a dry dock.
How could the Government, the municipality, the army, or the navy
explain this?

The anxiety, the excitement, the nervous desire to know what had
happened, and what might be expected next, spread that evening to every
part of the Dominion reached by telegraph.

The military authorities in charge of the defences of the city were as
much disturbed and amazed by what had happened as any civilian could
possibly be, but they had no fears for the safety of the place, for the
enemy's vessels could not possibly enter, nor even approach, the
harbour.  The fortifications on the heights mounted guns much heavier
than those on the men-of-war, and shots from these fired from an
elevation might sink even those "underwater devils." But, more than on
the forts, they relied upon their admirable system of torpedoes and
submarine batteries.  With these in position and ready for action, as
they now were, it was impossible for an enemy's vessel, floating on the
water or under it, to enter the harbour without certain destruction.

Bulletins to this effect were posted in the city, and somewhat allayed
the popular anxiety, although many people, who were fearful of what
might happen next, left by the evening trains for the interior.  That
night the news of this extraordinary affair was cabled to Europe, and
thence back to the United States, and all over the world.  In many
quarters the account was disbelieved, and in no quarter was it
thoroughly understood, for it must be borne in mind that the methods of
operation employed by the crabs were not evident to those on board the
disabled vessels.  But everywhere there was the greatest desire to know
what would be done next.

It was the general opinion that the two armoured vessels were merely
tenders to the submerged machines which had done the mischief.  Having
fired no guns, nor taken any active part in the combat, there was every
reason to believe that they were intended merely as bomb-proof
store-ships for their formidable consorts.  As these submerged vessels
could not attack a town, nor reduce fortifications, but could exercise
their power only against vessels afloat, it was plain enough to see
that the object of the American Syndicate was to blockade the port.
That they would be able to maintain the blockade when the full power of
the British navy should be brought to bear upon them was generally
doubted, though it was conceded in the most wrathful circles that,
until the situation should be altered, it would be unwise to risk
valuable war vessels in encounters with the diabolical sea-monsters now
lying off the port.

In the New York office of the Syndicate there was great satisfaction.
The news received was incorrect and imperfect, but it was evident that,
so far, everything had gone well.

About nine o'clock the next morning, Repeller No.  1, with her consort
half a mile astern, and preceded by the two crabs, one on either bow,
approached to within two miles of the harbour mouth.  The crabs, a
quarter of a mile ahead of the repeller, moved slowly; for between them
they bore an immense net, three or four hundred feet long, and thirty
feet deep, composed of jointed steel rods.  Along the upper edge of
this net was a series of air-floats, which were so graduated that they
were sunk by the weight of the net a few feet below the surface of the
water, from which position they held the net suspended vertically.

This net, which was intended to protect the repeller against the
approach of submarine torpedoes, which might be directed from the
shore, was anchored at each end, two very small buoys indicating its
position.  The crabs then falling astern, Repeller No. 1 lay to, with
the sunken net between her and the shore, and prepared to project the
first instantaneous motor-bomb ever used in warfare.

The great gun in the bow of the vessel was loaded with one of the
largest and most powerful motor-bombs, and the spot to be aimed at was
selected.  This was a point in the water just inside of the mouth of
the harbour, and nearly a mile from the land on either side.  The
distance of this point from the vessel being calculated, the cannon was
adjusted at the angle called for by the scale of distances and levels,
and the instrument indicating rise, fall, and direction was then put in
connection with it.

Now the Director-in-chief stepped forward to the button, by pressing
which the power of the motor was developed.  The chief of the
scientific corps then showed him the exact point upon the scale which
would be indicated when the gun was in its proper position, and the
piece was then moved upon its bearings so as to approximate as nearly
as possible this direction.

The bow of the vessel now rose upon the swell of the sea, and the
instant that the index upon the scale reached the desired point, the
Director-in-chief touched the button.

There was no report, no smoke, no visible sign that the motor had left
the cannon; but at that instant there appeared, to those who were on
the lookout, from a fort about a mile away, a vast aperture in the
waters of the bay, which was variously described as from one hundred
yards to five hundred yards in diameter.  At that same instant, in the
neighbouring headlands and islands far up the shores of the bay, and in
every street and building of the city, there was felt a sharp shock, as
if the underlying rocks had been struck by a gigantic trip-hammer.

At the same instant the sky above the spot where the motor had
descended was darkened by a wide-spreading cloud.  This was formed of
that portion of the water of the bay which had been instantaneously
raised to the height of about a thousand feet.  The sudden appearance
of this cloud was even more terrible than the yawning chasm in the
waters of the bay or the startling shock; but it did not remain long in
view.  It had no sooner reached its highest elevation than it began to
descend.  There was a strong sea-breeze blowing, and in its descent
this vast mass of water was impelled toward the land.

It came down, not as rain, but as the waters of a vast cataract, as
though a mountain lake, by an earthquake shock, had been precipitated
in a body upon a valley.  Only one edge of it reached the land, and
here the seething flood tore away earth, trees, and rocks, leaving
behind it great chasms and gullies as it descended to the sea.

The bay itself, into which the vast body of the water fell, became a
scene of surging madness.  The towering walls of water which had stood
up all around the suddenly created aperture hurled themselves back into
the abyss, and down into the great chasm at the bottom of the bay,
which had been made when the motor sent its shock along the great rock
beds.  Down upon, and into, this roaring, boiling tumult fell the
tremendous cataract from above, and the harbour became one wild expanse
of leaping maddened waves, hissing their whirling spray high into the
air.

During these few terrific moments other things happened which passed
unnoticed in the general consternation.  All along the shores of the
bay and in front of the city the waters seemed to be sucked away,
slowly returning as the sea forced them to their level, and at many
points up and down the harbour there were submarine detonations and
upheavals of the water.

These were caused by the explosion, by concussion, of every torpedo and
submarine battery in the harbour; and it was with this object in view
that the instantaneous motor-bomb had been shot into the mouth of the
bay.

The effects of the discharge of the motor-bomb astonished and even
startled those on board the repellers and the crabs.  At the instant of
touching the button a hydraulic shock was felt on Repeller No.  1.
This was supposed to be occasioned the discharge of the motor, but it
was also felt on the other vessels.  It was the same shock that had
been felt on shore, but less in degree.  A few moments after there was
a great heaving swell of the sea, which tossed and rolled the four
vessels, and lifted the steel protecting net so high that for an
instant parts of it showed themselves above the surface like glistening
sea-ghosts.

Experiments with motor-bombs had been made in unsettled mountainous
districts, but this was the first one which had ever exerted its power
under water.

On shore, in the forts, and in the city no one for an instant supposed
that the terrific phenomenon which had just occurred was in any way due
to the vessels of the Syndicate.  The repellers were in plain view, and
it was evident that neither of them had fired a gun.  Besides, the
firing of cannon did not produce such effects.  It was the general
opinion that there had been an earthquake shock, accompanied by a
cloud-burst and extraordinary convulsions of the sea.  Such a
combination of elementary disturbances had never been known in these
parts; and a great many persons were much more frightened than if they
had understood what had really happened.

In about half an hour after the discharge of the motor-bomb, when the
sea had resumed its usual quiet, a boat carrying a white flag left
Repeller No. 1, rowed directly over the submerged net, and made for the
harbour.  When the approach of this flag-of-truce was perceived from
the fort nearest the mouth of the harbour, it occasioned much surmise.
Had the earthquake brought these Syndicate knaves to their senses?  Or
were they about to make further absurd and outrageous demands?  Some
irate officers were of the opinion that enemies like these should be
considered no better than pirates, and that their flag-of-truce should
be fired upon.  But the commandant of the fort paid no attention to
such counsels, and sent a detachment with a white flag down to the
beach to meet the approaching boat and learn its errand.

The men in the boat had nothing to do but to deliver a letter from the
Director-in-chief to the commandant of the fort, and then row back
again.  No answer was required.

When the commandant read the brief note, he made no remark.  In fact,
he could think of no appropriate remark to make.  The missive simply
informed him that at ten o'clock and eighteen minutes A. M., of that
day, the first bomb from the marine forces of the Syndicate had been
discharged into the waters of the harbour.  At, or about, two o'clock
P.M., the second bomb would be discharged at Fort Pilcher.  That was
all.

What this extraordinary message meant could not be imagined by any
officer of the garrison.  If the people on board the ships were taking
advantage of the earthquake, and supposed that they could induce
British soldiers to believe that it had been caused by one of their
bombs, then were they idiots indeed.  They would fire their second shot
at Fort Pilcher!  This was impossible, for they had not yet fired their
first shot.  These Syndicate people were evidently very tricky, and the
defenders of the port must therefore be very cautious.

Fort Pilcher was a very large and unfinished fortification, on a bluff
on the opposite side of the harbour.  Work had been discontinued on it
as soon as the Syndicate's vessels had appeared off the port, for it
was not desired to expose the builders and workmen to a possible
bombardment.  The place was now, therefore, almost deserted; but after
the receipt of the Syndicate's message, the commandant feared that the
enemy might throw an ordinary shell into the unfinished works, and he
sent a boat across the bay to order away any workmen or others who
might be lingering about the place.

A little after two o'clock P.M., an instantaneous motor-bomb was
discharged from Repeller No. 1 into Fort Pilcher.  It was set to act
five seconds after impact with the object aimed at.  It struck in a
central portion of the unfinished fort, and having described a high
curve in the air, descended not only with its own motive power, but
with the force of gravitation, and penetrated deep into the earth.

Five seconds later a vast brown cloud appeared on the Fort Pilcher
promontory.  This cloud was nearly spherical in form, with an apparent
diameter of about a thousand yards.  At the same instant a shock
similar to that accompanying the first motor-bomb was felt in the city
and surrounding country; but this was not so severe as the other, for
the second bomb did not exert its force upon the underlying rocks of
the region as the first one had done.

The great brown cloud quickly began to lose its spherical form, part of
it descending heavily to the earth, and part floating away in vast
dust-clouds borne inland by the breeze, settling downward as they
moved, and depositing on land, water, ships, houses, domes, and trees
an almost impalpable powder.

When the cloud had cleared away there were no fortifications, and the
bluff on which they had stood had disappeared.  Part of this bluff had
floated away on the wind, and part of it lay piled in great heaps of
sand on the spot where its rocks were to have upheld a fort.

The effect of the motor-bomb was fully observed with glasses from the
various fortifications of the port, and from many points of the city
and harbour; and those familiar with the effects of explosives were not
long in making up their minds what had happened.  They felt sure that a
mine had been sprung beneath Fort Pilcher; and they were now equally
confident that in the morning a torpedo of novel and terrible power had
been exploded in the harbour.  They now disbelieved in the earthquake,
and treated with contempt the pretence that shots had been fired from
the Syndicate's vessel.  This was merely a trick of the enemy.  It was
not even likely that the mine or the torpedo had been operated from the
ship.  These were, in all probability, under the control of
confederates on shore, and had been exploded at times agreed upon
beforehand.  All this was perfectly plain to the military authorities.

But the people of the city derived no comfort from the announcement of
these conclusions.  For all that anybody knew the whole city might be
undermined, and at any moment might ascend in a cloud of minute
particles.  They felt that they were in a region of hidden traitors and
bombs, and in consequence of this belief thousands of citizens left
their homes.

That afternoon a truce-boat again went out from Repeller No. 1, and
rowed to the fort, where a letter to the commandant was delivered.
This, like the other, demanded no answer, and the boat returned.  Later
in the afternoon the two repellers, accompanied by the crabs, and
leaving the steel net still anchored in its place, retired a few miles
seaward, where they prepared to lay to for the night.

The letter brought by the truce-boat was read by the commandant,
surrounded by his officers.  It stated that in twenty-four hours from
time of writing it, which would be at or about four o'clock on the next
afternoon, a bomb would be thrown into the garrisoned fort, under the
command of the officer addressed.  As this would result in the entire
destruction of the fortification, the commandant was earnestly
counselled to evacuate the fort before the hour specified.

Ordinarily the commandant of the fort was of a calm and unexcitable
temperament.  During the astounding events of that day and the day
before he had kept his head cool; his judgment, if not correct, was the
result of sober and earnest consideration.  But now he lost his temper.
The unparalleled effrontery and impertinence of this demand of the
American Syndicate was too much for his self-possession.  He stormed in
anger.

Here was the culmination of the knavish trickery of these
conscienceless pirates who had attacked the port.  A torpedo had been
exploded in the harbour, an unfinished fort had been mined and blown
up, and all this had been done to frighten him--a British soldier--in
command of a strong fort well garrisoned and fully supplied with all
the munitions of war.  In the fear that his fort would be destroyed by
a mystical bomb, he was expected to march to a place of safety with all
his forces.  If this should be done it would not be long before these
crafty fellows would occupy the fort, and with its great guns turned
inland, would hold the city at their mercy.  There could be no greater
insult to a soldier than to suppose that he could be gulled by a trick
like this.

No thought of actual danger entered the mind of the commandant.  It had
been easy enough to sink a great torpedo in the harbour, and the
unguarded bluffs of Fort Pilcher offered every opportunity to the
scoundrels who may have worked at their mines through the nights of
several months.  But a mine under the fort which he commanded was an
impossibility; its guarded outposts prevented any such method of
attack.  At a bomb, or a dozen, or a hundred of the Syndicate's bombs
he snapped his fingers.  He could throw bombs as well.

Nothing would please him better than that those ark-like ships in the
offing should come near enough for an artillery fight.  A few tons of
solid shot and shell dropped on top of them might be a very conclusive
answer to their impudent demands.

The letter from the Syndicate, together with his own convictions on the
subject, were communicated by the commandant to the military
authorities of the port, and to the War Office of the Dominion.  The
news of what had happened that day had already been cabled across the
Atlantic back to the United States, and all over the world; and the
profound impression created by it was intensified when it became known
what the Syndicate proposed to do the next day.  Orders and advices
from the British Admiralty and War Office sped across the ocean, and
that night few of the leaders in government circles in England or
Canada closed their eyes.

The opinions of the commandant of the fort were received with but
little favour by the military and naval authorities.  Great
preparations were already ordered to repel and crush this most
audacious attack upon the port, but in the mean time it was highly
desirable that the utmost caution and prudence should be observed.
Three men-of-war had already been disabled by the novel and destructive
machines of the enemy, and it had been ordered that for the present no
more vessels of the British navy be allowed to approach the crabs of
the Syndicate.

Whether it was a mine or a bomb which had been used in the destruction
of the unfinished works of Fort Pilcher, it would be impossible to
determine until an official survey had been made of the ruins; but, in
any event, it would be wise and humane not to expose the garrison of
the fort on the south side of the harbour to the danger which had
overtaken the works on the opposite shore.  If, contrary to the opinion
of the commandant, the garrisoned fort were really mined, the following
day would probably prove the fact.  Until this point should be
determined it would be highly judicious to temporarily evacuate the
fort.  This could not be followed by occupation of the works by the
enemy, for all approaches, either by troops in boats or by bodies of
confederates by land, could be fully covered by the inland redoubts and
fortifications.

When the orders for evacuation reached the commandant of the fort, he
protested hotly, and urged that his protest be considered.  It was not
until the command had been reiterated both from London and Ottawa, that
he accepted the situation, and with bowed head prepared to leave his
post.  All night preparations for evacuation went on, and during the
next morning the garrison left the fort, and established itself far
enough away to preclude danger from the explosion of a mine, but near
enough to be available in case of necessity.

During this morning there arrived in the offing another Syndicate
vessel.  This had started from a northern part of the United States,
before the repellers and the crabs, and it had been engaged in laying a
private submarine cable, which should put the office of the Syndicate
in New York in direct communication with its naval forces engaged with
the enemy.  Telegraphic connection between the cable boat and Repeller
No. 1 having been established, the Syndicate soon received from its
Director-in-chief full and comprehensive accounts of what had been done
and what it was proposed to do.  Great was the satisfaction among the
members of the Syndicate when these direct and official reports came
in.  Up to this time they had been obliged to depend upon very
unsatisfactory intelligence communicated from Europe, which had been
supplemented by wild statements and rumours smuggled across the
Canadian border.

To counteract the effect of these, a full report was immediately made
by the Syndicate to the Government of the United States, and a bulletin
distinctly describing what had happened was issued to the people of the
country.  These reports, which received a world-wide circulation in the
newspapers, created a popular elation in the United States, and gave
rise to serious apprehensions and concern in many other countries.  But
under both elation and concern there was a certain doubtfulness.  So
far the Syndicate had been successful; but its style of warfare was
decidedly experimental, and its forces, in numerical strength at least,
were weak.  What would happen when the great naval power of Great
Britain should be brought to bear upon the Syndicate, was a question
whose probable answer was likely to cause apprehension and concern in
the United States, and elation in many other countries.

The commencement of active hostilities had been precipitated by this
Syndicate.  In England preparations were making by day and by night to
send upon the coast-lines of the United States a fleet which, in
numbers and power, would be greater than that of any naval expedition
in the history of the world.  It is no wonder that many people of sober
judgment in America looked upon the affair of the crabs and the
repellers as but an incident in the beginning of a great and disastrous
war.

On the morning of the destruction of Fort Pilcher, the Syndicate's
vessels moved toward the port, and the steel net was taken up by the
two crabs, and moved nearer the mouth of the harbour, at a point from
which the fort, now in process of evacuation, was in full view.  When
this had been done, Repeller No. 2 took up her position at a moderate
distance behind the net, and the other vessels stationed themselves
near by.

The protection of the net was considered necessary, for although there
could be no reasonable doubt that all the torpedoes in the harbour and
river had been exploded, others might be sent out against the
Syndicate's vessels; and a torpedo under a crab or a repeller was the
enemy most feared by the Syndicate.

About three o'clock the signals between the repellers became very
frequent, and soon afterwards a truce-boat went out from Repeller No.
1.  This was rowed with great rapidity, but it was obliged to go much
farther up the harbour than on previous occasions, in order to deliver
its message to an officer of the garrison.

This was to the effect that the evacuation of the fort had been
observed from the Syndicate's vessels, and although it had been
apparently complete, one of the scientific corps, with a powerful
glass, had discovered a man in one of the outer redoubts, whose
presence there was probably unknown to the officers of the garrison.
It was, therefore, earnestly urged that this man be instantly removed;
and in order that this might be done, the discharge of the motor-bomb
would be postponed half an hour.

The officer received this message, and was disposed to look upon it as
a new trick; but as no time was to be lost, he sent a corporal's guard
to the fort, and there discovered an Irish sergeant by the name of
Kilsey, who had sworn an oath that if every other man in the fort ran
away like a lot of addle-pated sheep, he would not run with them; he
would stand to his post to the last, and when the couple of ships
outside had got through bombarding the stout walls of the fort, the
world would see that there was at least one British soldier who was not
afraid of a bomb, be it little or big.  Therefore he had managed to
elude observation, and to remain behind.

The sergeant was so hot-headed in his determination to stand by the
fort, that it required violence to remove him; and it was not until
twenty minutes past four that the Syndicate observers perceived that he
had been taken to the hill behind which the garrison was encamped.

As it had been decided that Repeller No. 2 should discharge the next
instantaneous motor-bomb, there was an anxious desire on the part of
the operators on that vessel that in this, their first experience, they
might do their duty as well as their comrades on board the other
repeller had done theirs.  The most accurate observations, the most
careful calculations, were made and re-made, the point to be aimed at
being about the centre of the fort.

The motor-bomb had been in the cannon for nearly an hour, and
everything had long been ready, when at precisely thirty minutes past
four o'clock the signal to discharge came from the Director-in-chief;
and in four seconds afterwards the index on the scale indicated that
the gun was in the proper position, and the button was touched.

The motor-bomb was set to act the instant it should touch any portion
of the fort, and the effect was different from that of the other bombs.
There was a quick, hard shock, but it was all in the air.  Thousands of
panes of glass in the city and in houses for miles around were cracked
or broken, birds fell dead or stunned upon the ground, and people on
elevations at considerable distances felt as if they had received a
blow; but there was no trembling of the ground.

As to the fort, it had entirely disappeared, its particles having been
instantaneously removed to a great distance in every direction, falling
over such a vast expanse of land and water that their descent was
unobservable.

In the place where the fortress had stood there was a wide tract of
bare earth, which looked as if it had been scraped into a staring dead
level of gravel and clay.  The instantaneous motor-bomb had been
arranged to act almost horizontally.

Few persons, except those who from a distance had been watching the
fort with glasses, understood what had happened; but every one in the
city and surrounding country was conscious that something had happened
of a most startling kind, and that it was over in the same instant in
which they had perceived it.  Everywhere there was the noise of falling
window-glass. There were those who asserted that for an instant they
had heard in the distance a grinding crash; and there were others who
were quite sure that they had noticed what might be called a flash of
darkness, as if something had, with almost unappreciable quickness,
passed between them and the sun.

When the officers of the garrison mounted the hill before them and
surveyed the place where their fort had been, there was not one of them
who had sufficient command of himself to write a report of what had
happened.  They gazed at the bare, staring flatness of the shorn bluff,
and they looked at each other.  This was not war.  It was something
supernatural, awful!  They were not frightened; they were oppressed and
appalled.  But the military discipline of their minds soon exerted its
force, and a brief account of the terrific event was transmitted to the
authorities, and Sergeant Kilsey was sentenced to a month in the
guard-house.

No one approached the vicinity of the bluff where the fort had stood,
for danger might not be over; but every possible point of observation
within a safe distance was soon crowded with anxious and terrified
observers.  A feeling of awe was noticeable everywhere.  If people
could have had a tangible idea of what had occurred, it would have been
different.  If the sea had raged, if a vast body of water had been
thrown into the air, if a dense cloud had been suddenly ejected from
the surface of the earth, they might have formed some opinion about it.
But the instantaneous disappearance of a great fortification with a
little more appreciable accompaniment than the sudden tap, as of a
little hammer, upon thousands of window-panes, was something which
their intellects could not grasp.  It was not to be expected that the
ordinary mind could appreciate the difference between the action of an
instantaneous motor when imbedded in rocks and earth, and its effect,
when opposed by nothing but stone walls, upon or near the surface of
the earth.

Early the next morning, the little fleet of the Syndicate prepared to
carry out its further orders.  The waters of the lower bay were now
entirely deserted, craft of every description having taken refuge in
the upper part of the harbour near and above the city.  Therefore, as
soon as it was light enough to make observations, Repeller No. 1 did
not hesitate to discharge a motor-bomb into the harbour, a mile or more
above where the first one had fallen.  This was done in order to
explode any torpedoes which might have been put into position since the
discharge of the first bomb.

There were very few people in the city and suburbs who were at that
hour out of doors where they could see the great cloud of water arise
toward the sky, and behold it descend like a mighty cataract upon the
harbour and adjacent shores; but the quick, sharp shock which ran under
the town made people spring from their beds; and although nothing was
then to be seen, nearly everybody felt sure that the Syndicate's forces
had begun their day's work by exploding another mine.

A lighthouse, the occupants of which had been ordered to leave when the
fort was evacuated, as they might be in danger in case of a
bombardment, was so shaken by the explosion of this motor-bomb that it
fell in ruins on the rocks upon which it had stood.

The two crabs now took the steel net from its moorings and carried it
up the harbour.  This was rather difficult on account of the islands,
rocks, and sand-bars; but the leading crab had on board a pilot
acquainted with those waters.  With the net hanging between them, the
two submerged vessels, one carefully following the other, reached a
point about two miles below the city, where the net was anchored across
the harbour.  It did not reach from shore to shore, but in the course
of the morning two other nets, designed for shallower waters, were
brought from the repellers and anchored at each end of the main net,
thus forming a line of complete protection against submarine torpedoes
which might be sent down from the upper harbour.

Repeller No. 1 now steamed into the harbour, accompanied by Crab A, and
anchored about a quarter of a mile seaward of the net.  The other
repeller, with her attendant crab, cruised about the mouth of the
harbour, watching a smaller entrance to the port as well as the larger
one, and thus maintaining an effective blockade.  This was not a
difficult duty, for since the news of the extraordinary performances of
the crabs had been spread abroad, no merchant vessel, large or small,
cared to approach that port; and strict orders had been issued by the
British Admiralty that no vessel of the navy should, until further
instructed, engage in combat with the peculiar craft of the Syndicate.
Until a plan of action had been determined upon, it was very desirable
that English cruisers should not be exposed to useless injury and
danger.

This being the state of affairs, a message was sent from the office of
the Syndicate across the border to the Dominion Government, which
stated that the seaport city which had been attacked by the forces of
the Syndicate now lay under the guns of its vessels, and in case of any
overt act of war by Great Britain or Canada alone, such as the entrance
of an armed force from British territory into the United States, or a
capture of or attack upon an American vessel, naval or commercial, by a
British man-of-war, or an attack upon an American port by British
vessels, the city would be bombarded and destroyed.

This message, which was, of course, instantly transmitted to London,
placed the British Government in the apparent position of being held by
the throat by the American War Syndicate.  But if the British
Government, or the people of England or Canada, recognized this
position at all, it was merely as a temporary condition.  In a short
time the most powerful men-of-war of the Royal Navy, as well as a fleet
of transports carrying troops, would reach the coasts of North America,
and then the condition of affairs would rapidly be changed.  It was
absurd to suppose that a few medium-sized vessels, however heavily
armoured, or a few new-fangled submarine machines, however destructive
they might be, could withstand an armada of the largest and finest
armoured vessels in the world.  A ship or two might be disabled,
although this was unlikely, now that the new method of attack was
understood; but it would soon be the ports of the United States, on
both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, which would lie under the guns of
an enemy.

But it was not in the power of their navy that the British Government
and the people of England and Canada placed their greatest trust, but
in the incapacity of their petty foe to support its ridiculous
assumptions.  The claim that the city lay under the guns of the
American Syndicate was considered ridiculous, for few people believed
that these vessels had any guns.  Certainly, there had been no evidence
that any shots had been fired from them.  In the opinion of reasonable
people the destruction of the forts and the explosions in the harbour
had been caused by mines--mines of a new and terrifying power--which
were the work of traitors and confederates.  The destruction of the
lighthouse had strengthened this belief, for its fall was similar to
that which would have been occasioned by a great explosion under its
foundation.

But however terrifying and appalling had been the results of the
explosion of these mines, it was not thought probable that there were
any more of them.  The explosions had taken place at exposed points
distant from the city, and the most careful investigation failed to
discover any present signs of mining operations.

This theory of mines worked by confederates was received throughout the
civilized world, and was universally condemned.  Even in the United
States the feeling was so strong against this apparent alliance between
the Syndicate and British traitors, that there was reason to believe
that a popular pressure would be brought to bear upon the Government
sufficient to force it to break its contract with the Syndicate, and to
carry on the war with the National army and navy.  The crab was
considered an admirable addition to the strength of the navy, but a
mine under a fort, laid and fired by perfidious confederates, was
considered unworthy an enlightened people.

The members of the Syndicate now found themselves in an embarrassing
and dangerous position--a position in which they were placed by the
universal incredulity regarding the instantaneous motor; and unless
they could make the world believe that they really used such a
motor-bomb, the war could not be prosecuted on the plan projected.

It was easy enough to convince the enemy of the terrible destruction
the Syndicate was able to effect; but to make that enemy and the world
understand that this was done by bombs, which could be used in one
place as well as another, was difficult indeed.  They had attempted to
prove this by announcing that at a certain time a bomb should be
projected into a certain fort.  Precisely at the specified time the
fort had been destroyed, but nobody believed that a bomb had been fired.

Every opinion, official or popular, concerning what it had done and
what might be expected of it, was promptly forwarded to the Syndicate
by its agents, and it was thus enabled to see very plainly indeed that
the effect it had desired to produce had not been produced.  Unless the
enemy could be made to understand that any fort or ships within ten
miles of one of the Syndicate's cannon could be instantaneously
dissipated in the shape of fine dust, this war could not be carried on
upon the principles adopted, and therefore might as well pass out of
the hands of the Syndicate.

Day by day and night by night the state of affairs was anxiously
considered at the office of the Syndicate in New York.  A new and
important undertaking was determined upon, and on the success of this
the hopes of the Syndicate now depended.

During the rapid and vigorous preparations which the Syndicate were now
making for their new venture, several events of interest occurred.

Two of the largest Atlantic mail steamers, carrying infantry and
artillery troops, and conveyed by two swift and powerful men-of-war,
arrived off the coast of Canada, considerably to the north of the
blockaded city.  The departure and probable time of arrival of these
vessels had been telegraphed to the Syndicate, through one of the
continental cables, and a repeller with two crabs had been for some
days waiting for them.  The English vessels had taken a high northern
course, hoping they might enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence without
subjecting themselves to injury from the enemy's crabs, it not being
considered probable that there were enough of these vessels to patrol
the entire coast.  But although the crabs were few in number, the
Syndicate was able to place them where they would be of most use; and
when the English vessels arrived off the northern entrance to the gulf,
they found their enemies there.

However strong might be the incredulity of the enemy regarding the
powers of a repeller to bombard a city, the Syndicate felt sure there
would be no present invasion of the United States from Canada; but it
wished to convince the British Government that troops and munitions of
war could not be safely transported across the Atlantic.  On the other
hand, the Syndicate very much objected to undertaking the imprisonment
and sustenance of a large body of soldiers.  Orders were therefore
given to the officer in charge of the repeller not to molest the two
transports, but to remove the rudders and extract the screws of the two
war-vessels, leaving them to be towed into port by the troop-ships.

This duty was performed by the crabs, while the British vessels, both
rams, were preparing to make a united and vigorous onset on the
repeller, and the two men-of-war were left hopelessly tossing on the
waves.  One of the transports, a very fast steamer, had already entered
the straits, and could not be signalled; but the other one returned and
took both the war-ships in tow, proceeding very slowly until, after
entering the gulf, she was relieved by tugboats.

Another event of a somewhat different character was the occasion of
much excited feeling and comment, particularly in the United States.
The descent and attack by British vessels on an Atlantic port was a
matter of popular expectation.  The Syndicate had repellers and crabs
at the most important points; but, in the minds of naval officers and a
large portion of the people, little dependence for defence was to be
placed upon these.  As to the ability of the War Syndicate to prevent
invasion or attack by means of its threats to bombard the blockaded
Canadian port, very few believed in it.  Even if the Syndicate could do
any more damage in that quarter, which was improbable, what was to
prevent the British navy from playing the same game, and entering an
American seaport, threaten to bombard the place if the Syndicate did
not immediately run all their queer vessels high and dry on some
convenient beach?

A feeling of indignation against the Syndicate had existed in the navy
from the time that the war contract had been made, and this feeling
increased daily.  That the officers and men of the United States navy
should be penned up in harbours, ports, and sounds, while British ships
and the hulking mine-springers and rudder-pinchers of the Syndicate
were allowed to roam the ocean at will, was a very hard thing for brave
sailors to bear.  Sometimes the resentment against this state of
affairs rose almost to revolt.

The great naval preparations of England were not yet complete, but
single British men-of-war were now frequently seen off the Atlantic
coast of the United States.  No American vessels had been captured by
these since the message of the Syndicate to the Dominion of Canada and
the British Government.  But one good reason for this was the fact that
it was very difficult now to find upon the Atlantic ocean a vessel
sailing under the American flag.  As far as possible these had taken
refuge in their own ports or in those of neutral countries.

At the mouth of Delaware Bay, behind the great Breakwater, was now
collected a number of coastwise sailing-vessels and steamers of various
classes and sizes; and for the protection of these maritime refugees,
two vessels of the United States navy were stationed at this point.
These were the Lenox and Stockbridge, two of the finest cruisers in the
service, and commanded by two of the most restless and bravest officers
of the American navy.

The appearance, early on a summer morning, of a large British cruiser
off the mouth of the harbour, filled those two commanders with
uncontrollable belligerency.  That in time of war a vessel of the enemy
should be allowed, undisturbed, to sail up and down before an American
harbour, while an American vessel filled with brave American sailors
lay inside like a cowed dog, was a thought which goaded the soul of
each of these commanders.  There was a certain rivalry between the two
ships; and, considering the insult offered by the flaunting red cross
in the offing, and the humiliating restrictions imposed by the Naval
Department, each commander thought only of his own ship, and not at all
of the other.

It was almost at the same time that the commanders of the two ships
separately came to the conclusion that the proper way to protect the
fleet behind the Breakwater was for his vessel to boldly steam out to
sea and attack the British cruiser.  If this vessel carried a
long-range gun, what was to hinder her from suddenly running in closer
and sending a few shells into the midst of the defenceless merchantmen?
In fact, to go out and fight her was the only way to protect the lives
and property in the harbour.

It was true that one of those beastly repellers was sneaking about off
the cape, accompanied, probably, by an underwater tongs-boat.  But as
neither of these had done anything, or seemed likely to do anything,
the British cruiser should be attacked without loss of time.

When the commander of the Lenox came to this decision, his ship was
well abreast of Cape Henlopen, and he therefore proceeded directly out
to sea.  There was a little fear in his mind that the English cruiser,
which was now bearing to the south-east, might sail off and get away
from him.  The Stockbridge was detained by the arrival of a despatch
boat from the shore with a message from the Naval Department.  But as
this message related only to the measurements of a certain deck gun,
her commander intended, as soon as an answer could be sent off, to sail
out and give battle to the British vessel.

Every soul on board the Lenox was now filled with fiery ardour.  The
ship was already in good fighting trim, but every possible preparation
was made for a contest which should show their country and the world
what American sailors were made of.

The Lenox had not proceeded more than a mile out to sea, when she
perceived Repeller No. 6 coming toward her from seaward, and in a
direction which indicated that it intended to run across her course.
The Lenox, however, went straight on, and in a short time the two
vessels were quite near each other.  Upon the deck of the repeller now
appeared the director in charge, who, with a speaking-trumpet, hailed
the Lenox and requested her to lay to, as he had something to
communicate.  The commander of the Lenox, through his trumpet, answered
that he wanted no communications, and advised the other vessel to keep
out of his way.

The Lenox now put on a greater head of steam, and as she was in any
case a much faster vessel than the repeller, she rapidly increased the
distance between herself and the Syndicate's vessel, so that in a few
moments hailing was impossible.  Quick signals now shot up in jets of
black smoke from the repeller, and in a very short time afterward the
speed of the Lenox slackened so much that the repeller was able to come
up with her.

When the two vessels were abreast of each other, and at a safe hailing
distance apart, another signal went up from the repeller, and then both
vessels almost ceased to move through the water, although the engines
of the Lenox were working at high speed, with her propeller-blades
stirring up a whirlpool at her stern.

For a minute or two the officers of the Lenox could not comprehend what
had happened.  It was first supposed that by mistake the engines had
been slackened, but almost at the same moment that it was found that
this was not the case, the discovery was made that the crab
accompanying the repeller had laid hold of the stern-post of the Lenox,
and with all the strength of her powerful engines was holding her back.

Now burst forth in the Lenox a storm of frenzied rage, such as was
never seen perhaps upon any vessel since vessels were first built.
From the commander to the stokers every heart was filled with fury at
the insult which was put upon them.  The commander roared through his
trumpet that if that infernal sea-beetle were not immediately loosed
from his ship he would first sink her and then the repeller.

To these remarks the director of the Syndicate's vessels paid no
attention, but proceeded to state as briefly and forcibly as possible
that the Lenox had been detained in order that he might have an
opportunity of speaking with her commander, and of informing him that
his action in coming out of the harbour for the purpose of attacking a
British vessel was in direct violation of the contract between the
United States and the Syndicate having charge of the war, and that such
action could not be allowed.

The commander of the Lenox paid no more attention to these words than
the Syndicate's director had given to those he had spoken, but
immediately commenced a violent attack upon the crab.  It was
impossible to bring any of the large guns to bear upon her, for she was
almost under the stern of the Lenox; but every means of offence which
infuriated ingenuity could suggest was used against it.  Machine guns
were trained to fire almost perpendicularly, and shot after shot was
poured upon that portion of its glistening back which appeared above
the water.

But as these projectiles seemed to have no effect upon the solid back
of Crab H, two great anvils were hoisted at the end of the
spanker-boom, and dropped, one after the other, upon it.  The shocks
were tremendous, but the internal construction of the crabs provided,
by means of upright beams, against injury from attacks of this kind,
and the great masses of iron slid off into the sea without doing any
damage.

Finding it impossible to make any impression upon the mailed monster at
his stern, the commander of the Lenox hailed the director of the
repeller, and swore to him through his trumpet that if he did not
immediately order the Lenox to be set free, her heaviest guns should be
brought to bear upon his floating counting-house, and that it should be
sunk, if it took all day to do it.

It would have been a grim satisfaction to the commander of the Lenox to
sink Repeller No. 6, for he knew the vessel when she had belonged to
the United States navy.  Before she had been bought by the Syndicate,
and fitted out with spring armour, he had made two long cruises in her,
and he bitterly hated her, from her keel up.

The director of the repeller agreed to release the Lenox the instant
her commander would consent to return to port.  No answer was made to
this proposition, but a dynamite gun on the Lenox was brought to bear
upon the Syndicate's vessel.  Desiring to avoid any complications which
might ensue from actions of this sort, the repeller steamed ahead,
while the director signalled Crab H to move the stern of the Lenox to
the windward, which, being quickly done, the gun of the latter bore
upon the distant coast.

It was now very plain to the Syndicate director that his words could
have no effect upon the commander of the Lenox, and he therefore
signalled Crab H to tow the United States vessel into port.  When the
commander of the Lenox saw that his vessel was beginning to move
backward, he gave instant orders to put on all steam.  But this was
found to be useless, for when the dynamite gun was about to be fired,
the engines had been ordered stopped, and the moment that the
propeller-blades ceased moving the nippers of the crab had been
released from their hold upon the stern-post, and the propeller-blades
of the Lenox were gently but firmly seized in a grasp which included
the rudder.  It was therefore impossible for the engines of the vessel
to revolve the propeller, and, unresistingly, the Lenox was towed,
stern foremost, to the Breakwater.

The news of this incident created the wildest indignation in the United
States navy, and throughout the country the condemnation of what was
considered the insulting action of the Syndicate was general. In
foreign countries the affair was the subject of a good deal of comment,
but it was also the occasion of much serious consideration, for it
proved that one of the Syndicate's submerged vessels could, without
firing a gun, and without fear of injury to itself, capture a
man-of-war and tow it whither it pleased.

The authorities at Washington took instant action on the affair, and as
it was quite evident that the contract between the United States and
the Syndicate had been violated by the Lenox, the commander of that
vessel was reprimanded by the Secretary of the Navy, and enjoined that
there should be no repetitions of his offence.  But as the commander of
the Lenox knew that the Secretary of the Navy was as angry as he was at
what had happened, he did not feel his reprimand to be in any way a
disgrace.

It may be stated that the Stockbridge, which had steamed for the open
sea as soon as the business which had detained her was completed, did
not go outside the Cape.  When her officers perceived with their
glasses that the Lenox was returning to port stern foremost, they
opined what had happened, and desiring that their ship should do all
her sailing in the natural way, the Stockbridge was put about and
steamed, bow foremost, to her anchorage behind the Breakwater, the
commander thanking his stars that for once the Lenox had got ahead of
him.

The members of the Syndicate were very anxious to remove the
unfavorable impression regarding what was called in many quarters their
attack upon a United States vessel, and a circular to the public was
issued, in which they expressed their deep regret at being obliged to
interfere with so many brave officers and men in a moment of patriotic
enthusiasm, and explaining how absolutely necessary it was that the
Lenox should be removed from a position where a conflict with English
line-of-battle ships would be probable.  There were many thinking
persons who saw the weight of the Syndicate's statements, but the
effect of the circular upon the popular mind was not great.

The Syndicate was now hard at work making preparations for the grand
stroke which had been determined upon.  In the whole country there was
scarcely a man whose ability could be made available in their work, who
was not engaged in their service; and everywhere, in foundries,
workshops, and shipyards, the construction of their engines of war was
being carried on by day and by night.  No contracts were made for the
delivery of work at certain times; everything was done under the direct
supervision of the Syndicate and its subordinates, and the work went on
with a definiteness and rapidity hitherto unknown in naval construction.

In the midst of the Syndicate's labours there arrived off the coast of
Canada the first result of Great Britain's preparations for her war
with the American Syndicate, in the shape of the Adamant, the largest
and finest ironclad which had ever crossed the Atlantic, and which had
been sent to raise the blockade of the Canadian port by the Syndicate's
vessels.

This great ship had been especially fitted out to engage in combat with
repellers and crabs.  As far as was possible the peculiar construction
of the Syndicate's vessels had been carefully studied, and English
specialists in the line of naval construction and ordnance had given
most earnest consideration to methods of attack and defence most likely
to succeed with these novel ships of war.  The Adamant was the only
vessel which it had been possible to send out in so short a time, and
her cruise was somewhat of an experiment.  If she should be successful
in raising the blockade of the Canadian port, the British Admiralty
would have but little difficulty in dealing with the American Syndicate.

The most important object was to provide a defence against the
screw-extracting and rudder-breaking crabs; and to this end the Adamant
had been fitted with what was termed a "stern-jacket."  This was a
great cage of heavy steel bars, which was attached to the stern of the
vessel in such a way that it could be raised high above the water, so
as to offer no impediment while under way, and which, in time of
action, could be let down so as to surround and protect the rudder and
screw-propellers, of which the Adamant had two.

This was considered an adequate defence against the nippers of a
Syndicate crab; but as a means of offence against these almost
submerged vessels a novel contrivance had been adopted.  From a great
boom projecting over the stern, a large ship's cannon was suspended
perpendicularly, muzzle downward.  This gun could be swung around to
the deck, hoisted into a horizontal position, loaded with a heavy
charge, a wooden plug keeping the load in position when the gun hung
perpendicularly.

If the crab should come under the stern, this cannon could be fired
directly downward upon her back, and it was not believed that any
vessel of the kind could stand many such tremendous shocks.  It was not
known exactly how ventilation was supplied to the submarine vessels of
the Syndicate, nor how the occupants were enabled to make the necessary
observations during action.  When under way the crabs sailed somewhat
elevated above the water, but when engaged with an enemy only a small
portion of their covering armour could be seen.

It was surmised that under and between some of the scales of this
armour there was some arrangement of thick glasses, through which the
necessary observation could be made; and it was believed that, even if
the heavy perpendicular shots did not crush in the roof of a crab,
these glasses would be shattered by concussion.  Although this might
appear a matter of slight importance, it was thought among naval
officers it would necessitate the withdrawal of a crab from action.

In consequence of the idea that the crabs were vulnerable between their
overlapping plates, some of the Adamant's boats were fitted out with
Gatling and machine guns, by which a shower of balls might be sent
under the scales, through the glasses, and into the body of the crab.
In addition to their guns, these boats would be supplied with other
means of attack upon the crab.

Of course it would be impossible to destroy these submerged enemies by
means of dynamite or torpedoes; for with two vessels in close
proximity, the explosion of a torpedo would be as dangerous to the hull
of one as to the other.  The British Admiralty would not allow even the
Adamant to explode torpedoes or dynamite under her own stern.

With regard to a repeller, or spring-armoured vessel, the Adamant would
rely upon her exceptionally powerful armament, and upon her great
weight and speed.  She was fitted with twin screws and engines of the
highest power, and it was believed that she would be able to overhaul,
ram, and crush the largest vessel armoured or unarmoured which the
Syndicate would be able to bring against her.  Some of her guns were of
immense calibre, firing shot weighing nearly two thousand pounds, and
requiring half a ton of powder for each charge.  Besides these she
carried an unusually large number of large cannon and two dynamite
guns.  She was so heavily plated and armoured as to be proof against
any known artillery in the world.

She was a floating fortress, with men enough to make up the population
of a town, and with stores, ammunition, and coal sufficient to last for
a long term of active service.  Such was the mighty English battleship
which had come forward to raise the siege of the Canadian port.

The officers of the Syndicate were well aware of the character of the
Adamant, her armament and her defences, and had been informed by cable
of her time of sailing and probable destination.  They sent out
Repeller No. 7, with Crabs J and K, to meet her off the Banks of
Newfoundland.

This repeller was the largest and strongest vessel that the Syndicate
had ready for service.  In addition to the spring armour with which
these vessels were supplied, this one was furnished with a second coat
of armour outside the first, the elastic steel ribs of which ran
longitudinally and at right angles to those of the inner set.  Both
coats were furnished with a great number of improved air-buffers, and
the arrangement of spring armour extended five or six feet beyond the
massive steel plates with which the vessel was originally armoured.
She carried one motor-cannon of large size.

One of the crabs was of the ordinary pattern, but Crab K was furnished
with a spring armour above the heavy plates of her roof.  This had been
placed upon her after the news had been received by the Syndicate that
the Adamant would carry a perpendicular cannon over her stern, but
there had not been time enough to fit out another crab in the same way.

When the director in charge of Repeller No. 7 first caught sight of the
Adamant, and scanned through his glass the vast proportions of the
mighty ship which was rapidly steaming towards the coast, he felt that
a responsibility rested upon him heavier than any which had yet been
borne by an officer of the Syndicate; but he did not hesitate in the
duty which he had been sent to perform, and immediately ordered the two
crabs to advance to meet the Adamant, and to proceed to action
according to the instructions which they had previously received.  His
own ship was kept, in pursuance of orders, several miles distant from
the British ship.

As soon as the repeller had been sighted from the Adamant, a strict
lookout had been kept for the approach of crabs; and when the small
exposed portions of the backs of two of these were perceived glistening
in the sunlight, the speed of the great ship slackened.  The ability of
the Syndicate's submerged vessels to move suddenly and quickly in any
direction had been clearly demonstrated, and although a great ironclad
with a ram could run down and sink a crab without feeling the
concussion, it was known that it would be perfectly easy for the
smaller craft to keep out of the way of its bulky antagonist.
Therefore the Adamant did not try to ram the crabs, nor to get away
from them.  Her commander intended, if possible, to run down one or
both of them; but he did not propose to do this in the usual way.

As the crabs approached, the stern-jacket of the Adamant was let down,
and the engines were slowed.  This stern-jacket, when protecting the
rudder and propellers, looked very much like the cowcatcher of a
locomotive, and was capable of being put to a somewhat similar use.  It
was the intention of the captain of the Adamant, should the crabs
attempt to attach themselves to his stern, to suddenly put on all
steam, reverse his engines, and back upon them, the stern-jacket
answering as a ram.

The commander of the Adamant had no doubt that in this way he could run
into a crab, roll it over in the water, and when it was lying bottom
upward, like a floating cask, he could move his ship to a distance, and
make a target of it.  So desirous was this brave and somewhat facetious
captain to try his new plan upon a crab, that he forebore to fire upon
the two vessels of that class which were approaching him.  Some of his
guns were so mounted that their muzzles could be greatly depressed, and
aimed at an object in the water not far from the ship.  But these were
not discharged, and, indeed, the crabs, which were new ones of unusual
swiftness, were alongside the Adamant in an incredibly short time, and
out of the range of these guns.

Crab J was on the starboard side of the Adamant, Crab K was on the port
side, and, simultaneously, the two laid hold of her.  But they were not
directly astern of the great vessel.  Each had its nippers fastened to
one side of the stern-jacket, near the hinge-like bolts which held it
to the vessel, and on which it was raised and lowered.

In a moment the Adamant began to steam backward; but the only effect of
this motion, which soon became rapid, was to swing the crabs around
against her sides, and carry them with her.  As the vessels were thus
moving the great pincers of the crabs were twisted with tremendous
force, the stern-jacket on one side was broken from its bolt, and on
the other the bolt itself was drawn out of the side of the vessel.  The
nippers then opened, and the stern-jacket fell from their grasp into
the sea, snapping in its fall the chain by which it had been raised and
lowered.

This disaster occurred so quickly that few persons on board the Adamant
knew what had happened.  But the captain, who had seen everything, gave
instant orders to go ahead at full speed.  The first thing to be done
was to get at a distance from those crabs, keep well away from them,
and pound them to pieces with his heavy guns.

But the iron screw-propellers had scarcely begun to move in the
opposite direction, before the two crabs, each now lying at right
angles with the length of the ship, but neither of them directly astern
of her, made a dash with open nippers, and Crab J fastened upon one
propeller, while Crab K laid hold of the other.  There was a din and
crash of breaking metal, two shocks which were felt throughout the
vessel, and the shattered and crushed blades of the propellers of the
great battleship were powerless to move her.

The captain of the Adamant, pallid with fury, stood upon the poop.  In
a moment the crabs would be at his rudder!  The great gun,
double-shotted and ready to fire, was hanging from its boom over the
stern.  Crab K, whose roof had the additional protection of spring
armour, now moved round so as to be directly astern of the Adamant.
Before she could reach the rudder, her forward part came under the
suspended cannon, and two massive steel shot were driven down upon her
with a force sufficient to send them through masses of solid rock; but
from the surface of elastic steel springs and air-buffers they bounced
upward, one of them almost falling on the deck of the Adamant.

The gunners of this piece had been well trained.  In a moment the boom
was swung around, the cannon reloaded, and when Crab K fixed her
nippers on the rudder of the Adamant, two more shot came down upon her.
As in the first instance she dipped and rolled, but the ribs of her
uninjured armour had scarcely sprung back into their places, before her
nippers turned, and the rudder of the Adamant was broken in two, and
the upper portion dragged from its fastenings then a quick backward
jerk snapped its chains, and it was dropped into the sea.

A signal was now sent from Crab J to Repeller No.  7, to the effect
that the Adamant had been rendered incapable of steaming or sailing,
and that she lay subject to order.

Subject to order or not, the Adamant did not lie passive.  Every gun on
board which could be sufficiently depressed, was made ready to fire
upon the crabs should they attempt to get away.  Four large boats,
furnished with machine guns, grapnels, and with various appliances
which might be brought into use on a steel-plated roof, were lowered
from their davits, and immediately began firing upon the exposed
portions of the crabs.  Their machine guns were loaded with small
shells, and if these penetrated under the horizontal plates of a crab,
and through the heavy glass which was supposed to be in these
interstices, the crew of the submerged craft would be soon destroyed.

The quick eye of the captain of the Adamant had observed through his
glass, while the crabs were still at a considerable distance, their
protruding air-pipes, and he had instructed the officers in charge of
the boats to make an especial attack upon these.  If the air-pipes of a
crab could be rendered useless, the crew must inevitably be smothered.

But the brave captain did not know that the condensed-air chambers of
the crabs would supply their inmates for an hour or more without
recourse to the outer air, and that the air-pipes, furnished with
valves at the top, were always withdrawn under water during action with
an enemy.  Nor did he know that the glass blocks under the
armour-plates of the crabs, which were placed in rubber frames to
protect them from concussion above, were also guarded by steel netting
from injury by small balls.

Valiantly the boats beset the crabs, keeping up a constant fusillade,
and endeavouring to throw grapnels over them.  If one of these should
catch under an overlapping armour-plate it could be connected with the
steam windlass of the Adamant, and a plate might be ripped off or a
crab overturned.

But the crabs proved to be much more lively fish than their enemies had
supposed.  Turning, as if on a pivot, and darting from side to side,
they seemed to be playing with the boats, and not trying to get away
from them.  The spring armour of Crab K interfered somewhat with its
movements, and also put it in danger from attacks by grapnels, and it
therefore left most of the work to its consort.

Crab J, after darting swiftly in and out among her antagonists for some
time, suddenly made a turn, and dashing at one of the boats, ran under
it, and raising it on its glistening back, rolled it, bottom upward,
into the sea.  In a moment the crew of the boat were swimming for their
lives.  They were quickly picked up by two of the other boats, which
then deemed it prudent to return to the ship.

But the second officer of the Adamant, who commanded the fourth boat,
did not give up the fight.  Having noted the spring armour of Crab K,
he believed that if he could get a grapnel between its steel ribs he
yet might capture the sea-monster.  For some minutes Crab K contented
itself with eluding him; but, tired of this, it turned, and raising its
huge nippers almost out of the water, it seized the bow of the boat,
and gave it a gentle crunch, after which it released its hold and
retired.  The boat, leaking rapidly through two ragged holes, was rowed
back to the ship, which it reached half full of water.

The great battle-ship, totally bereft of the power of moving herself,
was now rolling in the trough of the sea, and a signal came from the
repeller for Crab K to make fast to her and put her head to the wind.
This was quickly done, the crab attaching itself to the stern-post of
the Adamant by a pair of towing nippers.  These were projected from the
stern of the crab, and were so constructed that the larger vessel did
not communicate all its motion to the smaller one, and could not run
down upon it.

As soon as the Adamant was brought up with her head to the wind she
opened fire upon the repeller.  The latter vessel could easily have
sailed out of the range of a motionless enemy, but her orders forbade
this.  Her director had been instructed by the Syndicate to expose his
vessel to the fire of the Adamant's heavy guns.  Accordingly the
repeller steamed nearer, and turned her broadside toward the British
ship.

Scarcely had this been done when the two great bow guns of the Adamant
shook the air with tremendous roars, each hurling over the sea nearly a
ton of steel.  One of these great shot passed over the repeller, but
the other struck her armoured side fairly amidship.  There was a crash
and scream of creaking steel, and Repeller No. 7 rolled over to
windward as if she had been struck by a heavy sea.  In a moment she
righted and shot ahead, and, turning, presented her port side to the
enemy.  Instant examination of the armour on her other side showed that
the two banks of springs were uninjured, and that not an air-buffer had
exploded or failed to spring back to its normal length.

Firing from the Adamant now came thick and fast, the crab, in obedience
to signals, turning her about so as to admit the firing of some heavy
guns mounted amidships.  Three enormous solid shot struck the repeller
at different points on her starboard armour without inflicting damage,
while the explosion of several shells which hit her had no more effect
upon her elastic armour than the impact of the solid shot.

It was the desire of the Syndicate not only to demonstrate to its own
satisfaction the efficiency of its spring armour, but to convince Great
Britain that her heaviest guns on her mightiest battle-ships could have
no effect upon its armoured vessels.  To prove the absolute superiority
of their means of offence and defence was the supreme object of the
Syndicate.  For this its members studied and worked by day and by
night; for this they poured out their millions; for this they waged
war.  To prove what they claimed would be victory.

When Repeller No. 7 had sustained the heavy fire of the Adamant for
about half an hour, it was considered that the strength of her armour
had been sufficiently demonstrated; and, with a much lighter heart than
when he had turned her broadside to the Adamant, her director gave
orders that she should steam out of the range of the guns of the
British ship.  During the cannonade Crab J had quietly slipped away
from the vicinity of the Adamant, and now joined the repeller.

The great ironclad battle-ship, with her lofty sides plated with nearly
two feet of solid steel, with her six great guns, each weighing more
than a hundred tons, with her armament of other guns, machine cannon,
and almost every appliance of naval warfare, with a small army of
officers and men on board, was left in charge of Crab K, of which only
a few square yards of armoured roof could be seen above the water.
This little vessel now proceeded to tow southward her vast prize,
uninjured, except that her rudder and propeller-blades were broken and
useless.

Although the engines of the crab were of enormous power, the progress
made was slow, for the Adamant was being towed stern foremost.  It
would have been easier to tow the great vessel had the crab been
attached to her bow, but a ram which extended many feet under water
rendered it dangerous for a submerged vessel to attach itself in its
vicinity.

During the night the repeller kept company, although at a considerable
distance, with the captured vessel; and early the next morning her
director prepared to send to the Adamant a boat with a flag-of-truce,
and a letter demanding the surrender and subsequent evacuation of the
British ship.  It was supposed that now, when the officers of the
Adamant had had time to appreciate the fact that they had no control
over the movements of their vessel; that their armament was powerless
against their enemies; that the Adamant could be towed wherever the
Syndicate chose to order, or left helpless in midocean,--they would be
obliged to admit that there was nothing for them to do but to surrender.

But events proved that no such ideas had entered the minds of the
Adamant's officers, and their action totally prevented sending a
flag-of-truce boat.  As soon as it was light enough to see the repeller
the Adamant began firing great guns at her.  She was too far away for
the shot to strike her, but to launch and send a boat of any kind into
a storm of shot and shell was of course impossible.

The cannon suspended over the stern of the Adamant was also again
brought into play, and shot after shot was driven down upon the towing
crab.  Every ball rebounded from the spring armour, but the officer in
charge of the crab became convinced that after a time this constant
pounding, almost in the same place, would injure his vessel, and he
signalled the repeller to that effect.

The director of Repeller No. 7 had been considering the situation.
There was only one gun on the Adamant which could be brought to bear
upon Crab K, and it would be the part of wisdom to interfere with the
persistent use of this gun.  Accordingly the bow of the repeller was
brought to bear upon the Adamant, and her motor gun was aimed at the
boom from which the cannon was suspended.

The projectile with which the cannon was loaded was not an
instantaneous motor-bomb.  It was simply a heavy solid shot, driven by
an instantaneous motor attachment, and was thus impelled by the same
power and in the same manner as the motor-bombs.  The instantaneous
motor-power had not yet been used at so great a distance as that
between the repeller and the Adamant, and the occasion was one of
intense interest to the small body of scientific men having charge of
the aiming and firing.

The calculations of the distance, of the necessary elevation and
direction, and of the degree of motor-power required, were made with
careful exactness, and when the proper instant arrived the button was
touched, and the shot with which the cannon was charged was
instantaneously removed to a point in the ocean about a mile beyond the
Adamant, accompanied by a large portion of the heavy boom at which the
gun had been aimed.

The cannon which had been suspended from the end of this boom fell into
the sea, and would have crashed down upon the roof of Crab K, had not
that vessel, in obedience to a signal from the repeller, loosened its
hold upon the Adamant and retired a short distance astern.  Material
injury might not have resulted from the fall of this great mass of
metal upon the crab, but it was considered prudent not to take useless
risks.

The officers of the Adamant were greatly surprised and chagrined by the
fall of their gun, with which they had expected ultimately to pound in
the roof of the crab.  No damage had been done to the vessel except the
removal of a portion of the boom, with some of the chains and blocks
attached, and no one on board the British ship imagined for a moment
that this injury had been occasioned by the distant repeller.  It was
supposed that the constant firing of the cannon had cracked the boom,
and that it had suddenly snapped.

Even if there had been on board the Adamant the means for rigging up
another arrangement of the kind for perpendicular artillery practice,
it would have required a long time to get it into working order, and
the director of Repeller No. 7 hoped that now the British captain would
see the uselessness of continued resistance.

But the British captain saw nothing of the kind,
and shot after shot from his guns were hurled high into the air, in
hopes that the great curves described would bring some of them down on
the deck of the repeller.  If this beastly store-ship, which could
stand fire but never returned it, could be sunk, the Adamant's captain
would be happy.  With the exception of the loss of her motive power,
his vessel was intact, and if the stupid crab would only continue to
keep the Adamant's head to the sea until the noise of her cannonade
should attract some other British vessel to the scene, the condition of
affairs might be altered.

All that day the great guns of the Adamant continued to roar.  The next
morning, however, the firing was not resumed, and the officers of the
repeller were greatly surprised to see approaching from the British
ship a boat carrying a white flag.  This was a very welcome sight, and
the arrival of the boat was awaited with eager interest.

During the night a council had been held on board the Adamant.  Her
cannonading had had no effect, either in bringing assistance or in
injuring the enemy; she was being towed steadily southward farther and
farther from the probable neighbourhood of a British man-of-war; and it
was agreed that it would be the part of wisdom to come to terms with
the Syndicate's vessel.

Therefore the captain of the Adamant sent a letter to the repeller, in
which he stated to the persons in charge of that ship, that although
his vessel had been injured in a manner totally at variance with the
rules of naval warfare, he would overlook this fact and would agree to
cease firing upon the Syndicate's vessels, provided that the submerged
craft which was now made fast to his vessel should attach itself to the
Adamant's bow, and by means of a suitable cable which she would
furnish, would tow her into British waters.  If this were done he would
guarantee that the towing craft should have six hours in which to get
away.

When this letter was read on board the repeller it created considerable
merriment, and an answer was sent back that no conditions but those of
absolute surrender could be received from the British ship.

In three minutes after this answer had been received by the captain of
the Adamant, two shells went whirring and shrieking through the air
toward Repeller No. 7, and after that the cannonading from the bow, the
stern, the starboard, and the port guns of the great battle-ship went
on whenever there was a visible object on the ocean which looked in the
least like an American coasting vessel or man-of-war.

For a week Crab K towed steadily to the south this blazing and
thundering marine citadel; and then the crab signalled to the still
accompanying repeller that it must be relieved.  It had not been fitted
out for so long a cruise, and supplies were getting low.

The Syndicate, which had been kept informed of all the details of this
affair, had already perceived the necessity of relieving Crab K, and
another crab, well provisioned and fitted out, was already on the way
to take its place.  This was Crab C, possessing powerful engines, but
in point of roof armour the weakest of its class.  It could be better
spared than any other crab to tow the Adamant, and as the British ship
had not, and probably could not, put out another suspended cannon, it
was considered quite suitable for the service required.

But when Crab C came within half a mile of the Adamant it stopped.  It
was evident that on board the British ship a steady lookout had been
maintained for the approach of fresh crabs, for several enormous shell
and shot from heavy guns, which had been trained upward at a high
angle, now fell into the sea a short distance from the crab.

Crab C would not have feared these heavy shot had they been fired from
an ordinary elevation; and although no other vessel in the Syndicate's
service would have hesitated to run the terrible gauntlet, this one, by
reason of errors in construction, being less able than any other crab
to resist the fall from a great height of ponderous shot and shell,
thought it prudent not to venture into this rain of iron; and, moving
rapidly beyond the line of danger, it attempted to approach the Adamant
from another quarter.  If it could get within the circle of falling
shot it would be safe.  But this it could not do.  On all sides of the
Adamant guns had been trained to drop shot and shells at a distance of
half a mile from the ship.

Around and around the mighty ironclad steamed Crab C; but wherever she
went her presence was betrayed to the fine glasses on board the Adamant
by the bit of her shining back and the ripple about it; and ever
between her and the ship came down that hail of iron in masses of a
quarter ton, half ton, or nearly a whole ton.  Crab C could not venture
under these, and all day she accompanied the Adamant on her voyage
south, dashing to this side and that, and looking for the chance that
did not come, for all day the cannon of the battle-ship roared at her
wherever she might be.

The inmates of Crab K were now very restive and
uneasy, for they were on short rations, both of food and water.  They
would have been glad enough to cast loose from the Adamant, and leave
the spiteful ship to roll to her heart's content, broadside to the sea.
They did not fear to run their vessel, with its thick roofplates
protected by spring armour, through the heaviest cannonade.

But signals from the repeller commanded them to stay by the Adamant as
long as they could hold out, and they were obliged to content
themselves with a hope that when night fell the other crab would be
able to get in under the stern of the Adamant, and make the desired
exchange.

But to the great discomfiture of the Syndicate's forces, darkness had
scarcely come on before four enormous electric lights blazed high up on
the single lofty mast of the Adamant, lighting up the ocean for a mile
on every side of the ship.  It was of no more use for Crab C to try to
get in now than in broad daylight; and all night the great guns roared,
and the little crab manoeuvred.

The next morning a heavy fog fell upon the sea, and the battle-ship and
Crab C were completely shut out of sight of each other.  Now the cannon
of the Adamant were silent, for the only result of firing would be to
indicate to the crab the location of the British ship.  The
smoke-signals of the towing crab could not be seen through the fog by
her consorts, and she seemed to be incapable of making signals by
sound.  Therefore the commander of the Adamant thought it likely that
until the fog rose the crab could not find his ship.

What that other crab intended to do could be, of course, on board the
Adamant, only a surmise; but it was believed that she would bring with
her a torpedo to be exploded under the British ship.  That one crab
should tow her away from possible aid until another should bring a
torpedo to fasten to her stern-post seemed a reasonable explanation of
the action of the Syndicate's vessels.

The officers of the Adamant little understood the resources and
intentions of their opponents.  Every vessel of the Syndicate carried a
magnetic indicator, which was designed to prevent collisions with iron
vessels.  This little instrument was placed at night and during fogs at
the bow of the vessel, and a delicate arm of steel, which ordinarily
pointed upward at a considerable angle, fell into a horizontal position
when any large body of iron approached within a quarter of a mile, and,
so falling, rang a small bell.  Its point then turned toward the mass
of iron.

Soon after the fog came on, one of these indicators, properly protected
from the attraction of the metal about it, was put into position on
Crab C.  Before very long it indicated the proximity of the Adamant;
and, guided by its steel point, the Crab moved quietly to the ironclad,
attached itself to its stern-post, and allowed the happy crew of Crab K
to depart coastward.

When the fog rose the glasses of the Adamant showed the approach of no
crab, but it was observed, in looking over the stern, that the beggarly
devil-fish which had the ship in tow appeared to have made some change
in its back.

In the afternoon of that day a truce boat was sent from the repeller to
the Adamant.  It was allowed to come alongside; but when the British
captain found that the Syndicate merely renewed its demand for his
surrender, he waxed fiercely angry, and sent the boat back with the
word that no further message need be sent to him unless it should be
one complying with the conditions he had offered.

The Syndicate now gave up the task of inducing the captain of the
Adamant to surrender.  Crab C was commanded to continue towing the
great ship southward, and to keep her well away from the coast, in
order to avoid danger to seaport towns and coasting vessels, while the
repeller steamed away.

Week after week the Adamant moved southward, roaring away with her
great guns whenever an American sail came within possible range, and
surrounding herself with a circle of bursting bombs to let any crab
know what it might expect if it attempted to come near.  Blazing and
thundering, stern foremost, but stoutly, she rode the waves, ready to
show the world that she was an impregnable British battle-ship, from
which no enemy could snatch the royal colours which floated high above
her.

It was during the first week of the involuntary cruise of the Adamant
that the Syndicate finished its preparations for what it hoped would be
the decisive movement of its campaign.  To do this a repeller and six
crabs, all with extraordinary powers, had been fitted out with great
care, and also with great rapidity, for the British Government was
working night and day to get its fleet of ironclads in readiness for a
descent upon the American coast.  Many of the British vessels were
already well prepared for ordinary naval warfare; but to resist crabs
additional defences were necessary.  It was known that the Adamant had
been captured, and consequently the manufacture of stern-jackets had
been abandoned; but it was believed that protection could be
effectually given to rudders and propeller-blades by a new method which
the Admiralty had adopted.

The repeller which was to take part in the Syndicate's proposed
movement had been a vessel of the United States navy which for a long
time had been out of commission, and undergoing a course of very slow
and desultory repairs in a dockyard.  She had always been considered
the most unlucky craft in the service, and nearly every accident that
could happen to a ship had happened to her.  Years and years before,
when she would set out upon a cruise, her officers and crew would
receive the humorous sympathy of their friends, and wagers were
frequently laid in regard to the different kinds of mishaps which might
befall this unlucky vessel, which was then known as the Tallapoosa.

The Syndicate did not particularly desire this vessel, but there was no
other that could readily be made available for its purposes, and
accordingly the Tallapoosa was purchased from the Government and work
immediately begun upon her.  Her engines and hull were put into good
condition, and outside of her was built another hull, composed of heavy
steel armour-plates, and strongly braced by great transverse beams
running through the ship.

Still outside of this was placed an improved system of spring armour,
much stronger and more effective than any which had yet been
constructed.  This, with the armour-plate, added nearly fifteen feet to
the width of the vessel above water.  All her superstructures were
removed from her deck, which was covered by a curved steel roof, and
under a bomb-proof canopy at the bow were placed two guns capable of
carrying the largest-sized motor-bombs.  The Tallapoosa, thus
transformed, was called Repeller No. 11.

The immense addition to her weight would of course
interfere very much with the speed of the new repeller, but this was
considered of little importance, as she would depend on her own engines
only in time of action.  She was now believed to possess more perfect
defences than any battle-ship in the world.

Early on a misty morning, Repeller No. 11, towed by four of the
swiftest and most powerful crabs, and followed by two others, left a
Northern port of the United States, bound for the coast of Great
Britain.  Her course was a very northerly one, for the reason that the
Syndicate had planned work for her to do while on her way across the
Atlantic.

The Syndicate had now determined, without unnecessarily losing an hour,
to plainly demonstrate the power of the instantaneous motor-bomb.  It
had been intended to do this upon the Adamant, but as it had been found
impossible to induce the captain of that vessel to evacuate his ship,
the Syndicate had declined to exhibit the efficiency of their new agent
of destruction upon a disabled craft crowded with human beings.

This course had been highly prejudicial to the claims of the Syndicate,
for as Repeller No. 7 had made no use in the contest with the Adamant
of the motor-bombs with which she was said to be supplied, it was
generally believed on both sides of the Atlantic that she carried no
such bombs, and the conviction that the destruction at the Canadian
port had been effected by means of mines continued as strong as it had
ever been.  To correct these false ideas was, now the duty of Repeller
No. 11.

For some time Great Britain had been steadily forwarding troops and
munitions of war to Canada, without interruption from her enemy.  Only
once had the Syndicate's vessels appeared above the Banks of
Newfoundland, and as the number of these peculiar craft must
necessarily be small, it was not supposed that their line of operations
would be extended very far north, and no danger from them was
apprehended, provided the English vessels laid their courses well to
the north.

Shortly before the sailing of Repeller No. 11, the Syndicate had
received news that one of the largest transatlantic mail steamers,
loaded with troops and with heavy cannon for Canadian fortifications,
and accompanied by the Craglevin, one of the largest ironclads in the
Royal Navy, had started across the Atlantic.  The first business of the
repeller and her attendant crabs concerned these two vessels.

Owing to the power and speed of the crabs which towed her, Repeller No.
11 made excellent time; and on the morning of the third day out the two
British vessels were sighted.  Somewhat altering their course the
Syndicate's vessels were soon within a few miles of the enemy.

The Craglevin was a magnificent warship.  She was not quite so large as
the Adamant, and she was unprovided with a stern-jacket or other
defence of the kind.  In sending her out the Admiralty had designed her
to defend the transport against the regular vessels of the United
States navy; for although the nature of the contract with the Syndicate
was well understood in England, it was not supposed that the American
Government would long consent to allow their war vessels to remain
entirely idle.

When the captain of the Craglevin perceived the approach of the
repeller he was much surprised, but he did not hesitate for a moment as
to his course.  He signalled to the transport, then about a mile to the
north, to keep on her way while he steered to meet the enemy.  It had
been decided in British naval circles that the proper thing to do in
regard to a repeller was to ram her as quickly as possible.  These
vessels were necessarily slow and unwieldy, and if a heavy ironclad
could keep clear of crabs long enough to rush down upon one, there was
every reason to believe that the "ball-bouncer," as the repellers were
called by British sailors, could be crushed in below the water-line and
sunk.  So, full of courage and determination, the captain of the
Craglevin bore down upon the repeller.

It is not necessary to enter into details of the ensuing action.
Before the Craglevin was within half a mile of her enemy she was seized
by two crabs, all of which had cast loose from the repeller, and in
less than twenty minutes both of her screws were extracted and her
rudder shattered.  In the mean time two of the swiftest crabs had
pursued the transport, and, coming up with her, one of them had
fastened to her rudder, without, however, making any attempt to injure
it.  When the captain of the steamer saw that one of the sea-devils had
him by the stern, while another was near by ready to attack him, he
prudently stopped his engines and lay to, the crab keeping his ship's
head to the sea.

The captain of the Craglevin was a very different man from the captain
of the Adamant.  He was quite as brave, but he was wiser and more
prudent.  He saw that the transport had been captured and forced to lay
to; he saw that the repeller mounted two heavy guns at her bow, and
whatever might be the character of those guns, there could be no
reasonable doubt that they were sufficient to sink an ordinary mail
steamer.  His own vessel was entirely out of his control, and even if
he chose to try his guns on the spring armour of the repeller, it would
probably result in the repeller turning her fire up on the transport.

With a disabled ship, and the lives of so many men in his charge, the
captain of the Craglevin saw that it would be wrong for him to attempt
to fight, and he did not fire a gun.  With as much calmness as the
circumstances would permit, he awaited the progress of events.

In a very short time a message came to him from Repeller No. 11, which
stated that in two hours his ship would be destroyed by instantaneous
motor-bombs.  Every opportunity, however, would be given for the
transfer to the mail steamer of all the officers and men on board the
Craglevin, together with such of their possessions as they could take
with them in that time.  When this had been done the transport would be
allowed to proceed on her way.

To this demand nothing but acquiescence was possible.  Whether or not
there was such a thing as an instantaneous motor-bomb the Craglevin's
officers did not know; but they knew that if left to herself their ship
would soon attend to her own sinking, for there was a terrible rent in
her stern, owing to a pitch of the vessel while one of the
propeller-shafts was being extracted.

Preparations for leaving the ship were, therefore,
immediately begun.  The crab was ordered to release the mail steamer,
which, in obedience to signals from the Craglevin, steamed as near that
vessel as safety would permit.  Boats were lowered from both ships, and
the work of transfer went on with great activity.

There was no lowering of flags on board the Craglevin, for the
Syndicate attached no importance to such outward signs and formalities.
If the captain of the British ship chose to haul down his colours he
could do so; but if he preferred to leave them still bravely floating
above his vessel he was equally welcome to do that.

When nearly every one had left the Craglevin, a boat was sent from the
repeller, which lay near by, with a note requesting the captain and
first officer of the British ship to come on board Repeller No. 11 and
witness the method of discharging the instantaneous motor-bomb, after
which they would be put on board the transport.  This invitation struck
the captain of the Craglevin with surprise, but a little reflection
showed him that it would be wise to accept it.  In the first place, it
was in the nature of a command, which, in the presence of six crabs and
a repeller, it would be ridiculous to disobey; and, moreover, he was
moved by a desire to know something about the Syndicate's mysterious
engine of destruction, if, indeed, such a thing really existed.

Accordingly, when all the others had left the ship, the captain of the
Craglevin and his first officer came on board the repeller, curiously
observing the spring armour over which they passed by means of a light
gang-board with handrail.  They were received by the director at one of
the hatches of the steel deck, which were now all open, and conducted
by him to the bomb-proof compartment in the bow.  There was no reason
why the nature of the repeller's defences should not be known to the world
nor adopted by other nations.  They were intended as a protection
against ordinary shot and shell; they would avail nothing against the
instantaneous motor-bomb.

The British officers were shown the motor-bomb to be discharged, which,
externally, was very much like an ordinary shell, except that it was
nearly as long as the bore of the cannon; and the director stated that
although, of course, the principle of the motor-bomb was the
Syndicate's secret, it was highly desirable that its effects and its
methods of operation should be generally known.

The repeller, accompanied by the mail steamer and all the crabs, now
moved to about two miles to the leeward of the Craglevin, and lay to.
The motor-bomb was then placed in one of the great guns, while the
scientific corps attended to the necessary calculations of distance,
etc.

The director now turned to the British captain, who had been observing
everything with the greatest interest, and, with a smile, asked him if
he would like to commit hari-kari?

As this remark was somewhat enigmatical, the director went on to say
that if it would be any gratification to the captain to destroy his
vessel with his own hands, instead of allowing this to be done by an
enemy, he was at liberty to do so.  This offer was immediately
accepted, for if his ship was really to be destroyed, the captain felt
that he would like to do it himself.

When the calculations had been made and the indicator set, the captain
was shown the button he must press, and stood waiting for the signal.
He looked over the sea at the Craglevin, which had settled a little at
the stern, and was rolling heavily; but she was still a magnificent
battleship, with the red cross of England floating over her.  He could
not help the thought that if this motor mystery should amount to
nothing, there was no reason why the Craglevin should not be towed into
port, and be made again the grand warship that she had been.

Now the director gave the signal, and the captain, with his eyes fixed
upon his ship, touched the button.  A quick shock ran through the
repeller, and a black-gray cloud, half a mile high, occupied the place
of the British ship.

The cloud rapidly settled down, covering the water with a glittering
scum which spread far and wide, and which had been the Craglevin.

The British captain stood for a moment motionless, and then he picked
up a rammer and ran it into the muzzle of the cannon which had been
discharged.  The great gun was empty.  The instantaneous motor-bomb was
not there.

Now he was convinced that the Syndicate had not mined the fortresses
which they had destroyed.

In twenty minutes the two British officers were on board the transport,
which then steamed rapidly westward.  The crabs again took the repeller
in tow, and the Syndicate's fleet continued its eastward course,
passing through the wide expanse of glittering scum which had spread
itself upon the sea.

They were not two-thirds of their way across the Atlantic when the
transport reached St. John's, and the cable told the world that the
Craglevin had been annihilated.

The news was received with amazement, and even consternation.  It came
from an officer in the Royal Navy, and how could it be doubted that a
great man-of-war had been destroyed in a moment by one shot from the
Syndicate's vessel!  And yet, even now, there were persons who did
doubt, and who asserted that the crabs might have placed a great
torpedo under the Craglevin, that a wire attached to this torpedo ran
out from the repeller, and that the British captain had merely fired
the torpedo.  But hour by hour, as fuller news came across the ocean,
the number of these doubters became smaller and smaller.

In the midst of the great public excitement which now existed on both
sides of the Atlantic,--in the midst of all the conflicting opinions,
fears, and hopes,--the dominant sentiment seemed to be, in America as
well as in Europe, one of curiosity.  Were these six crabs and one
repeller bound to the British Isles?  And if so, what did they intend
to do when they got there?

It was now generally admitted that one of the Syndicate's crabs could
disable a man-of-war, that one of the Syndicate's repellers could
withstand the heaviest artillery fire, and that one of the Syndicate's
motor-bombs could destroy a vessel or a fort.  But these things had
been proved in isolated combats, where the new methods of attack and
defence had had almost undisturbed opportunity for exhibiting their
efficiency.  But what could a repeller and half a dozen crabs do
against the combined force of the Royal Navy,--a navy which had in the
last few years regained its supremacy among the nations, and which had
made Great Britain once more the first maritime power in the world?

The crabs might disable some men-of-war, the repeller might make her
calculations and discharge her bomb at a ship or a fort, but what would
the main body of the navy be doing meanwhile?  Overwhelming, crushing,
and sinking to the bottom crabs, repeller, motor guns, and everything
that belonged to them.

In England there was a feeling of strong resentment that such a little
fleet should be allowed to sail with such intent into British waters.
This resentment extended itself, not only to the impudent Syndicate,
but toward the Government; and the opposition party gained daily in
strength.  The opposition papers had been loud and reckless in their
denunciations of the slowness and inadequacy of the naval preparations,
and loaded the Government with the entire responsibility, not only of
the damage which had already been done to the forts, the ships, and the
prestige of Great Britain, but also for the threatened danger of a
sudden descent of the Syndicate's fleet upon some unprotected point
upon the coast.  This fleet should never have been allowed to approach
within a thousand miles of England.  It should have been sunk in
mid-ocean, if its sinking had involved the loss of a dozen men-of-war.

In America a very strong feeling of dissatisfaction showed itself.
From the first, the Syndicate contract had not been popular; but the
quick, effective, and business-like action of that body of men, and the
marked success up to this time of their inventions and their
operations, had caused a great reaction in their favour.  They had, so
far, successfully defended the American coast, and when they had
increased the number of their vessels, they would have been relied upon
to continue that defence.  Even if a British armada had set out to
cross the Atlantic, its movements must have been slow and cumbrous, and
the swift and sudden strokes with which the Syndicate waged war could
have been given by night and by day over thousands of miles of ocean.

Whether or not these strokes would have been quick enough or hard
enough to turn back an armada might be a question; but there could be
no question of the suicidal policy of sending seven ships and two
cannon to conquer England.  It seemed as if the success of the
Syndicate had so puffed up its members with pride and confidence in
their powers that they had come to believe that they had only to show
themselves to conquer, whatever might be the conditions of the contest.

The destruction of the Syndicate's fleet would now be a heavy blow to
the United States.  It would produce an utter want of confidence in the
councils and judgments of the Syndicate, which could not be
counteracted by the strongest faith in the efficiency of their engines
of war; and it was feared it might become necessary, even at this
critical juncture, to annul the contract with the Syndicate, and to
depend upon the American navy for the defence of the American coast.

Even among the men on board the Syndicate's fleet there were signs of
doubt and apprehensions of evil.  It had all been very well so far, but
fighting one ship at a time was a very different thing from steaming
into the midst of a hundred ships.  On board the repeller there was now
an additional reason for fears and misgivings.  The unlucky character
of the vessel when it had been the Tallapoosa was known, and not a few
of the men imagined that it must now be time for some new disaster to
this ill-starred craft, and if her evil genius had desired fresh
disaster for her, it was certainly sending her into a good place to
look for it.

But the Syndicate neither doubted nor hesitated nor paid any attention
to the doubts and condemnations which they heard from every quarter.
Four days after the news of the destruction of the Craglevin had been
telegraphed from Canada to London, the Syndicate's fleet entered the
English Channel.  Owing to the power and speed of the crabs, Repeller
No. 11 had made a passage of the Atlantic which in her old naval career
would have been considered miraculous.

Craft of various kinds were now passed, but none of them carried the
British flag.  In the expectation of the arrival of the enemy, British
merchantmen and fishing vessels had been advised to keep in the
background until the British navy had concluded its business with the
vessels of the American Syndicate.

As has been said before, the British Admiralty had adopted a new method
of defence for the rudders and screw-propellers of naval vessels
against the attacks of submerged craft.  The work of constructing the
new appliances had been pushed forward as fast as possible, but so far
only one of these had been finished and attached to a man-of-war.

The Llangaron was a recently built ironclad of the same size and class
as the Adamant; and to her had been attached the new stern-defence.
This was an immense steel cylinder, entirely closed, and rounded at the
ends.  It was about ten feet in diameter, and strongly braced inside.
It was suspended by chains from two davits which projected over the
stern of the vessel.  When sailing this cylinder was hoisted up to the
davits, but when the ship was prepared for action it was lowered until
it lay, nearly submerged, abaft of the rudder.  In this position its
ends projected about fifteen feet on either side of the
propeller-blades.

It was believed that this cylinder would effectually prevent a crab
from getting near enough to the propeller or the rudder to do any
damage.  It could not be torn away as the stern-jacket had been, for
the rounded and smooth sides and ends of the massive cylinder would
offer no hold to the forceps of the crabs; and, approaching from any
quarter, it would be impossible for these forceps to reach rudder or
screw.

The Syndicate's little fleet arrived in British waters late in the day,
and early the next morning it appeared about twenty miles to the south
of the Isle of Wight, and headed to the north-east, as if it were
making for Portsmouth.  The course of these vessels greatly surprised
the English Government and naval authorities.  It was expected that an
attack would probably be made upon some comparatively unprotected spot
on the British seaboard, and therefore on the west coast of Ireland and
in St. George's Channel preparations of the most formidable character
had been made to defend British ports against Repeller No. 11 and her
attendant crabs.  Particularly was this the case in Bristol Channel,
where a large number of ironclads were stationed, and which was to have
been the destination of the Llangaron if the Syndicate's vessels had
delayed their coming long enough to allow her to get around there.
That this little fleet should have sailed straight for England's great
naval stronghold was something that the British Admiralty could not
understand.  The fact was not appreciated that it was the object of the
Syndicate to measure its strength with the greatest strength of the
enemy.  Anything less than this would not avail its purpose.

Notwithstanding that so many vessels had been sent to different parts
of the coast, there was still in Portsmouth harbour a large number of
war vessels of various classes, all in commission and ready for action.
The greater part of these had received orders to cruise that day in the
channel.  Consequently, it was still early in the morning when, around
the eastern end of the Isle of Wight, there appeared a British fleet
composed of fifteen of the finest ironclads, with several gunboats and
cruisers, and a number of torpedo-boats.

It was a noble sight, for besides the warships there was another fleet
hanging upon the outskirts of the first, and composed of craft, large
and small, and from both sides of the channel, filled with those who
were anxious to witness from afar the sea-fight which was to take place
under such novel conditions.  Many of these observers were reporters
and special correspondents for great newspapers.  On some of the
vessels which came up from the French coast were men with marine
glasses of extraordinary power, whose business it was to send an early
and accurate report of the affair to the office of the War Syndicate in
New York.

As soon as the British ships came in sight, the four crabs cast off
from Repeller No. 11.  Then with the other two they prepared for
action, moving considerably in advance of the repeller, which now
steamed forward very slowly.  The wind was strong from the north-west,
and the sea high, the shining tops of the crabs frequently disappearing
under the waves.

The British fleet came steadily on, headed by the great Llangaron.
This vessel was very much in advance of the others, for knowing that
when she was really in action and the great cylinder which formed her
stern-guard was lowered into the water her speed would be much
retarded, she had put on all steam, and being the swiftest war-ship of
her class, she had distanced all her consorts.  It was highly important
that she should begin the fight, and engage the attention of as many
crabs as possible, while certain of the other ships attacked the
repeller with their rams.  Although it was now generally believed that
motor-bombs from a repeller might destroy a man-of-war, it was also
considered probable that the accurate calculations which appeared to be
necessary to precision of aim could not be made when the object of the
aim was in rapid motion.

But whether or not one or more motor-bombs did strike the mark, or
whether or not one or more vessels were blown into fine particles,
there were a dozen ironclads in that fleet, each of whose commanders
and officers were determined to run into that repeller and crush her,
if so be they held together long enough to reach her.

The commanders of the torpedo-boats had orders to direct their swift
messengers of destruction first against the crabs, for these vessels
were far in advance of the repeller, and coming on with a rapidity
which showed that they were determined upon mischief.  If a torpedo,
shot from a torpedo-boat, and speeding swiftly by its own powers
beneath the waves, should strike the submerged hull of a crab, there
would be one crab the less in the English Channel.

As has been said, the Llangaron came rushing on, distancing everything,
even the torpedo-boats.  If, before she was obliged to lower her
cylinder, she could get near enough to the almost stationary repeller
to take part in the attack on her, she would then be content to slacken
speed and let the crabs nibble awhile at her stern.

Two of the latest constructed and largest crabs, Q and R, headed at
full speed to meet the Llangaron, who, as she came on, opened the ball
by sending a "rattler" in the shape of a five-hundred-pound shot into
the ribs of the repeller, then at least four miles distant, and
immediately after began firing her dynamite guns, which were of limited
range at the roofs of the advancing crabs.

There were some on board the repeller who, at the moment the great shot
struck her, with a ringing and clangour of steel springs, such as never
was heard before, wished that in her former state of existence she had
been some other vessel than the Tallapoosa.

But every spring sprang back to its place as the great mass of iron
glanced off into the sea.  The dynamite bombs flew over the tops of the
crabs, whose rapid motions and slightly exposed surfaces gave little
chance for accurate aim, and in a short time they were too close to the
Llangaron for this class of gun to be used upon them.

As the crabs came nearer, the Llangaron lowered the great steel
cylinder which hung across her stern, until it lay almost entirely
under water, and abaft of her rudder and propeller-blades.  She now
moved slowly through the water, and her men greeted the advancing crabs
with yells of defiance, and a shower of shot from machine guns.

The character of the new defence which had been fitted to the Llangaron
was known to the Syndicate, and the directors of the two new crabs
understood the heavy piece of work which lay before them.  But their
plans of action had been well considered, and they made straight for
the stern of the British ship.

It was, of course, impossible to endeavour to grasp that great cylinder
with its rounded ends; their forceps would slip from any portion of its
smooth surface on which they should endeavour to lay hold, and no such
attempt was made.  Keeping near the cylinder, one at each end of it,
the two moved slowly after the Llangaron, apparently discouraged.

In a short time, however, it was perceived by those on board the ship
that a change had taken place in the appearance of the crabs; the
visible portion of their backs was growing larger and larger; they were
rising in the water.  Their mailed roofs became visible from end to
end, and the crowd of observers looking down from the ship were amazed
to see what large vessels they were.

Higher and higher the crabs arose, their powerful air-pumps working at
their greatest capacity, until their ponderous pincers became visible
above the water.  Then into the minds of the officers of the Llangaron
flashed the true object of this uprising, which to the crew had seemed
an intention on the part of the sea-devils to clamber on board.

If the cylinder were left in its present position the crab might seize
the chains by which it was suspended, while if it were raised it would
cease to be a defence.  Notwithstanding this latter contingency, the
order was quickly given to raise the cylinder; but before the hoisting
engine had been set in motion, Crab Q thrust forward her forceps over
the top of the cylinder and held it down.  Another thrust, and the iron
jaws had grasped one of the two ponderous chains by which the cylinder
was suspended.

The other end of the cylinder began to rise, but at this moment Crab R,
apparently by a single effort, lifted herself a foot higher out of the
sea; her pincers flashed forward, and the other chain was grasped.

The two crabs were now placed in the most extraordinary position.  The
overhang of their roofs prevented an attack on their hulls by the
Llangaron, but their unmailed hulls were so greatly exposed that a few
shot from another ship could easily have destroyed them.  But as any
ship firing at them would be very likely to hit the Llangaron, their
directors felt safe on this point.

Three of the foremost ironclads, less than two miles away, were heading
directly for them, and their rams might be used with but little danger
to the Llangaron; but, on the other hand, three swift crabs were
heading directly for these ironclads.

It was impossible for Crabs Q and R to operate in the usual way.  Their
massive forceps, lying flat against the top of the cylinder, could not
be twisted.  The enormous chains they held could not be severed by the
greatest pressure, and if both crabs backed at once they would probably
do no more than tow the Llangaron stern foremost.  There was, moreover,
no time to waste in experiments, for other rams would be coming on, and
there were not crabs enough to attend to them all.

No time was wasted.  Q signalled to R, and R back again, and instantly
the two crabs, each still grasping a chain of the cylinder, began to
sink.  On board the Llangaron an order was shouted to let out the
cylinder chains; but as these chains had only been made long enough to
allow the top of the cylinder to hang at or a little below the surface
of the water, a foot or two of length was all that could be gained.

The davits from which the cylinder hung were thick and strong, and the
iron windlasses to which the chains were attached were large and
ponderous; but these were not strong enough to withstand the weight of
two crabs with steel-armoured roofs, enormous engines, and iron hull.
In less than a minute one davit snapped like a pipe-stem under the
tremendous strain, and immediately afterward the windlass to which the
chain was attached was torn from its bolts, and went crashing
overboard, tearing away a portion of the stern-rail in its descent.

Crab Q instantly released the chain it had held, and in a moment the
great cylinder hung almost perpendicularly from one chain.  But only
for a moment.  The nippers of Crab R still firmly held the chain, and
the tremendous leverage exerted by the falling of one end of the
cylinder wrenched it from the rigidly held end of its chain, and, in a
flash, the enormous stern-guard of the Llangaron sunk, end foremost, to
the bottom of the channel.

In ten minutes afterward, the Llangaron, rudderless, and with the
blades of her propellers shivered and crushed, was slowly turning her
starboard to the wind and the sea, and beginning to roll like a log of
eight thousand tons.

Besides the Llangaron, three ironclads were now drifting broadside to
the sea.  But there was no time to succour disabled vessels, for the
rest of the fleet was coming on, and there was great work for the crabs.

Against these enemies, swift of motion and sudden in action, the
torpedo-boats found it almost impossible to operate, for the British
ships and the crabs were so rapidly nearing each other that a torpedo
sent out against an enemy was more than likely to run against the hull
of a friend.  Each crab sped at the top of its speed for a ship, not
only to attack, but also to protect itself.

Once only did the crabs give the torpedo-boats a chance.  A mile or two
north of the scene of action, a large cruiser was making her way
rapidly toward the repeller, which was still lying almost motionless,
four miles to the westward.  As it was highly probable that this vessel
carried dynamite guns, Crab Q, which was the fastest of her class, was
signalled to go after her.  She had scarcely begun her course across
the open space of sea before a torpedo-boat was in pursuit.  Fast as
was the latter, the crab was faster, and quite as easily managed.  She
was in a position of great danger, and her only safety lay in keeping
herself on a line between the torpedo-boat and the gun-boat, and to
shorten as quickly as possible the distance between herself and that
vessel.

If the torpedo-boat shot to one side in order to get the crab out of
line, the crab, its back sometimes hidden by the tossing waves, sped
also to the same side.  When the torpedo-boat could aim a gun at the
crab and not at the gun-boat, a deadly torpedo flew into the sea; but a
tossing sea and a shifting target were unfavourable to the gunner's
aim.  It was not long, however, before the crab had run the chase which
might so readily have been fatal to it, and was so near the gun-boat
that no more torpedoes could be fired at it.

Of course the officers and crew of the gun-boat had watched with most
anxious interest the chase of the crab.  The vessel was one which had
been fitted out for service with dynamite guns, of which she carried
some of very long range for this class of artillery, and she had been
ordered to get astern of the repeller and to do her best to put a few
dynamite bombs on board of her.

The dynamite gun-boat therefore had kept ahead at full speed,
determined to carry out her instructions if she should be allowed to do
so; but her speed was not as great as that of a crab, and when the
torpedo-boat had given up the chase, and the dreaded crab was drawing
swiftly near, the captain thought it time for bravery to give place to
prudence.  With the large amount of explosive material of the most
tremendous and terrific character which he had on board, it would be
the insanity of courage for him to allow his comparatively small vessel
to be racked, shaken, and partially shivered by the powerful jaws of
the on-coming foe.  As he could neither fly nor fight, he hauled down
his flag in token of surrender, the first instance of the kind which
had occurred in this war.

When the director of Crab Q, through his lookout-glass, beheld this
action on the part of the gun-boat, he was a little perplexed as to
what he should next do.  To accept the surrender of the British vessel,
and to assume control of her, it was necessary to communicate with her.
The communications of the crabs were made entirely by black-smoke
signals, and these the captain of the gun-boat could not understand.
The heavy hatches in the mailed roof which could be put in use when the
crab was cruising, could not be opened when she was at her fighting
depth, and in a tossing sea.

A means was soon devised of communicating with the gun-boat.  A
speaking-tube was run up through one of the air-pipes of the crab,
which pipe was then elevated some distance above the surface.  Through
this the director hailed the other vessel, and as the air-pipe was near
the stern of the crab, and therefore at a distance from the only
visible portion of the turtle-back roof, his voice seemed to come out
of the depths of the ocean.

The surrender was accepted, and the captain of the gun-boat was ordered
to stop his engines and prepare to be towed.  When this order had been
given, the crab moved round to the bow of the gun-boat, and grasping
the cut-water with its forceps, reversed its engines and began to back
rapidly toward the British fleet, taking with it the captured vessel as
a protection against torpedoes while in transit.

The crab slowed up not far from one of the foremost of the British
ships, and coming round to the quarter of the gun-boat, the astonished
captain of that vessel was informed, through the speaking-tube, that if
he would give his parole to keep out of this fight, he would be allowed
to proceed to his anchorage in Portsmouth harbour.  The parole was
given, and the dynamite gun-boat, after reporting to the flag-ship,
steamed away to Portsmouth.

The situation now became one which was unparalleled in the history of
naval warfare.  On the side of the British, seven war-ships were
disabled and drifting slowly to the south-east.  For half an hour no
advance had been made by the British fleet, for whenever one of the
large vessels had steamed ahead, such vessel had become the victim of a
crab, and the Vice-Admiral commanding the fleet had signalled not to
advance until farther orders.

The crabs were also lying-to, each to the windward of, and not far
from, one of the British ships.  They had ceased to make any attacks,
and were resting quietly under protection of the enemy.  This, with the
fact that the repeller still lay four miles away, without any apparent
intention of taking part in the battle, gave the situation its peculiar
character.

The British Vice-Admiral did not intend to remain in this quiescent
condition.  It was, of course, useless to order forth his ironclads,
simply to see them disabled and set adrift.  There was another arm of
the service which evidently could be used with better effect upon this
peculiar foe than could the great battle-ships.

But before doing anything else, he must provide for the safety of those
of his vessels which had been rendered helpless by the crabs, and some
of which were now drifting dangerously near to each other.  Despatches
had been sent to Portsmouth for tugs, but it would not do to wait until
these arrived, and a sufficient number of ironclads were detailed to
tow their injured consorts into port.

When this order had been given, the Vice-Admiral immediately prepared
to renew the fight, and this time his efforts were to be directed
entirely against the repeller.  It would be useless to devote any
further attention to the crabs, especially in their present positions.
But if the chief vessel of the Syndicate's fleet, with its spring
armour and its terrible earthquake bombs, could be destroyed, it was
quite possible that those sea-parasites, the crabs, could also be
disposed of.

Every torpedo-boat was now ordered to the front, and in a long line,
almost abreast of each other, these swift vessels--the light-infantry
of the sea--advanced upon the solitary and distant foe.  If one torpedo
could but reach her hull, the Vice-Admiral, in spite of seven disabled
ironclads and a captured gun-boat, might yet gaze proudly at his
floating flag, even if his own ship should be drifting broadside to the
sea.

The line of torpedo-boats, slightly curving inward, had advanced about
a mile, when Repeller No. 11 awoke from her seeming sleep, and began to
act.  The two great guns at her bow were trained upward, so that a bomb
discharged from them would fall into the sea a mile and a half ahead.
Slowly turning her bow from side to side, so that the guns would cover
a range of nearly half a circle, the instantaneous motor-bombs of the
repeller were discharged, one every half minute.

One of the most appalling characteristics of the motor-bombs was the
silence which accompanied their discharge and action.  No noise was
heard, except the flash of sound occasioned by the removal of the
particles of the object aimed at, and the subsequent roar of wind or
fall of water.

As each motor-bomb dropped into the channel, a dense cloud appeared
high in the air, above a roaring, seething cauldron, hollowed out of
the waters and out of the very bottom of the channel.  Into this chasm
the cloud quickly came down, condensed into a vast body of water, which
fell, with the roar of a cyclone, into the dreadful abyss from which it
had been torn, before the hissing walls of the great hollow had half
filled it with their sweeping surges.  The piled-up mass of the
redundant water was still sending its maddened billows tossing and
writhing in every direction toward their normal level, when another
bomb was discharged; another surging abyss appeared, another roar of
wind and water was heard, and another mountain of furious billows
uplifted itself in a storm of spray and foam, raging that it had found
its place usurped.

Slowly turning, the repeller discharged bomb after bomb, building up
out of the very sea itself a barrier against its enemies.  Under these
thundering cataracts, born in an instant, and coming down all at once
in a plunging storm; into these abysses, with walls of water and floors
of cleft and shivered rocks; through this wide belt of raging turmoil,
thrown into new frenzy after the discharge of every bomb,--no vessel,
no torpedo, could pass.

The air driven off in every direction by tremendous and successive
concussions came rushing back in shrieking gales, which tore up the
waves into blinding foam.  For miles in every direction the sea swelled
and upheaved into great peaked waves, the repeller rising upon these
almost high enough to look down into the awful chasms which her bombs
were making.  A torpedo-boat caught in one of the returning gales was
hurled forward almost on her beam ends until she was under the edge of
one of the vast masses of descending water.  The flood which, from even
the outer limits of this falling-sea, poured upon and into the unlucky
vessel nearly swamped her, and when she was swept back by the rushing
waves into less stormy waters, her officers and crew leaped into their
boats and deserted her.  By rare good-fortune their boats were kept
afloat in the turbulent sea until they reached the nearest
torpedo-vessel.

Five minutes afterward a small but carefully aimed motor-bomb struck
the nearly swamped vessel, and with the roar of all her own torpedoes
she passed into nothing.

The British Vice-Admiral had carefully watched the repeller through his
glass, and he noticed that simultaneously with the appearance of the
cloud in the air produced by the action of the motor-bombs there were
two puffs of black smoke from the repeller.  These were signals to the
crabs to notify them that a motor-gun had been discharged, and thus to
provide against accidents in case a bomb should fail to act.  One puff
signified that a bomb had been discharged to the north; two, that it
had gone eastward; and so on.  If, therefore, a crab should see a
signal of this kind, and perceive no signs of the action of a bomb, it
would be careful not to approach the repeller from the quarter
indicated.  It is true that in case of the failure of a bomb to act,
another bomb would be dropped upon the same spot, but the instructions
of the War Syndicate provided that every possible precaution should be
taken against accidents.

Of course the Vice-Admiral did not understand these signals, nor did he
know that they were signals, but he knew that they accompanied the
discharge of a motor-gun.  Once he noticed that there was a short
cessation in the hitherto constant succession of water avalanches, and
during this lull he had seen two puffs from the repeller, and the
destruction, at the same moment, of the deserted torpedo-boat.  It was,
therefore, plain enough to him that if a motor-bomb could be placed so
accurately upon one torpedo-boat, and with such terrible result, other
bombs could quite as easily be discharged upon the other torpedo-boats
which formed the advanced line of the fleet.  When the barrier of storm
and cataract again began to stretch itself in front of the repeller, he
knew that not only was it impossible for the torpedo-boats to send
their missives through this raging turmoil, but that each of these
vessels was itself in danger of instantaneous destruction.

Unwilling, therefore, to expose his vessels to profitless danger, the
Vice-Admiral ordered the torpedo-boats to retire from the front, and
the whole line of them proceeded to a point north of the fleet, where
they lay to.

When this had been done, the repeller ceased the discharge of bombs;
but the sea was still heaving and tossing after the storm, when a
despatch-boat brought orders from the British Admiralty to the
flagship.  Communication between the British fleet and the shore, and
consequently London, had been constant, and all that had occurred had
been quickly made known to the Admiralty and the Government.  The
orders now received by the Vice-Admiral were to the effect that it was
considered judicious to discontinue the conflict for the day, and that
he and his whole fleet should return to Portsmouth to receive further
orders.

In issuing these commands the British Government was actuated simply by
motives of humanity and common sense.  The British fleet was thoroughly
prepared for ordinary naval warfare, but an enemy had inaugurated
another kind of naval warfare, for which it was not prepared.  It was,
therefore, decided to withdraw the ships until they should be prepared
for the new kind of warfare.  To allow ironclad after ironclad to be
disabled and set adrift, to subject every ship in the fleet to the
danger of instantaneous destruction, and all this without the
possibility of inflicting injury upon the enemy, would not be bravery;
it would be stupidity.  It was surely possible to devise a means for
destroying the seven hostile ships now in British waters.  Until action
for this end could be taken, it was the part of wisdom for the British
navy to confine itself to the protection of British ports.

When the fleet began to move toward the Isle of Wight, the six crabs,
which had been lying quietly among and under the protection of their
enemies, withdrew southward, and, making a slight circuit, joined the
repeller.

Each of the disabled ironclads was now in tow of a sister vessel, or of
tugs, except the Llangaron.  This great ship had been disabled so early
in the contest, and her broadside had presented such a vast surface to
the north-west wind, that she had drifted much farther to the south
than any other vessel.  Consequently, before the arrival of the tugs
which had been sent for to tow her into harbour, the Llangaron was well
on her way across the channel.  A foggy night came on, and the next
morning she was ashore on the coast of France, with a mile of water
between her and dry land.  Fast-rooted in a great sand-bank, she lay
week after week, with the storms that came in from the Atlantic, and
the storms that came in from the German Ocean, beating upon her tall
side of solid iron, with no more effect than if it had been a precipice
of rock.  Against waves and winds she formed a massive breakwater, with
a wide stretch of smooth sea between her and the land.  There she lay,
proof against all the artillery of Europe, and all the artillery of the
sea and the storm, until a fleet of small vessels had taken from her
her ponderous armament, her coal and stores, and she had been lightened
enough to float upon a high tide, and to follow three tugs to
Portsmouth.

When night came on, Repeller No. 11 and the crabs dropped down with the
tide, and lay to some miles west of the scene of battle.  The fog shut
them in fairly well, but, fearful that torpedoes might be sent out
against them, they showed no lights.  There was little danger of
collision with passing merchantmen, for the English Channel, at
present, was deserted by this class of vessels.

The next morning the repeller, preceded by two crabs, bearing between
them a submerged net similar to that used at the Canadian port,
appeared off the eastern end of the Isle of Wight.  The anchors of the
net were dropped, and behind it the repeller took her place, and
shortly afterward she sent a flag-of-truce boat to Portsmouth harbour.
This boat carried a note from the American War Syndicate to the British
Government.

In this note it was stated that it was now the intention of the
Syndicate to utterly destroy, by means of the instantaneous motor, a
fortified post upon the British coast.  As this would be done solely
for the purpose of demonstrating the irresistible destructive power of
the motor-bombs, it was immaterial to the Syndicate what fortified post
should be destroyed, provided it should answer the requirements of the
proposed demonstration.  Consequently the British Government was
offered the opportunity of naming the fortified place which should be
destroyed.  If said Government should decline to do this, or delay the
selection for twenty-four hours, the Syndicate would itself decide upon
the place to be operated upon.

Every one in every branch of the British Government, and, in fact,
nearly every thinking person in the British islands, had been racking
his brains, or her brains, that night, over the astounding situation;
and the note of the Syndicate only added to the perturbation of the
Government.  There was a strong feeling in official circles that the
insolent little enemy must be crushed, if the whole British navy should
have to rush upon it, and all sink together in a common grave.

But there were cooler and more prudent brains at the head of affairs;
and these had already decided that the contest between the old engines
of war and the new ones was entirely one-sided.  The instincts of good
government dictated to them that they should be extremely wary and
circumspect during the further continuance of this unexampled war.
Therefore, when the note of the Syndicate was considered, it was agreed
that the time had come when good statesmanship and wise diplomacy would
be more valuable to the nation than torpedoes, armoured ships, or heavy
guns.

There was not the slightest doubt that the country would disagree with
the Government, but on the latter lay the responsibility of the
country's safety.  There was nothing, in the opinion of the ablest
naval officers, to prevent the Syndicate's fleet from coming up the
Thames.  Instantaneous motor-bombs could sweep away all forts and
citadels, and explode and destroy all torpedo defences, and London
might lie under the guns of the repeller.

In consequence of this view of the state of affairs, an answer was sent
to the Syndicate's note, asking that further time be given for the
consideration of the situation, and suggesting that an exhibition of
the power of the motor-bomb was not necessary, as sufficient proof of
this had been given in the destruction of the Canadian forts, the
annihilation of the Craglevin, and the extraordinary results of the
discharge of said bombs on the preceding day.

To this a reply was sent from the office of the Syndicate in New York,
by means of a cable boat from the French coast, that on no account
could their purpose be altered or their propositions modified.
Although the British Government might be convinced of the power of the
Syndicate's motor-bombs, it was not the case with the British people,
for it was yet popularly disbelieved that motor-bombs existed.  This
disbelief the Syndicate was determined to overcome, not only for the
furtherance of its own purposes, but to prevent the downfall of the
present British Ministry, and a probable radical change in the
Government.  That such a political revolution, as undesirable to the
Syndicate as to cool-headed and sensible Englishmen, was imminent,
there could be no doubt.  The growing feeling of disaffection, almost
amounting to disloyalty, not only in the opposition party, but among
those who had hitherto been firm adherents of the Government, was
mainly based upon the idea that the present British rulers had allowed
themselves to be frightened by mines and torpedoes, artfully placed and
exploded.  Therefore the Syndicate intended to set right the public
mind upon this subject.  The note concluded by earnestly urging the
designation, without loss of time, of a place of operations.

This answer was received in London in the evening, and all night it was
the subject of earnest and anxious deliberation in the Government
offices.  It was at last decided, amid great opposition, that the
Syndicate's alternative must be accepted, for it would be the height of
folly to allow the repeller to bombard any port she should choose.
When this conclusion had been reached, the work of selecting a place
for the proposed demonstration of the American Syndicate occupied but
little time.  The task was not difficult.  Nowhere in Great Britain was
there a fortified spot of so little importance as Caerdaff, on the west
coast of Wales.

Caerdaff consisted of a large fort on a promontory, and an immense
castellated structure on the other side of a small bay, with a little
fishing village at the head of said bay.  The castellated structure was
rather old, the fortress somewhat less so; and both had long been
considered useless, as there was no probability that an enemy would
land at this point on the coast.

Caerdaff was therefore selected as the spot to be operated upon.  No
one could for a moment imagine that the Syndicate had mined this place;
and if it should be destroyed by motor-bombs, it would prove to the
country that the Government had not been frightened by the tricks of a
crafty enemy.

An hour after the receipt of the note in which it was stated that
Caerdaff had been selected, the Syndicate's fleet started for that
place.  The crabs were elevated to cruising height, the repeller taken
in tow, and by the afternoon of the next day the fleet was lying off
Caerdaff.  A note was sent on shore to the officer in command, stating
that the bombardment would begin at ten o'clock in the morning of the
next day but one, and requesting that information of the hour appointed
be instantly transmitted to London.  When this had been done, the fleet
steamed six or seven miles off shore, where it lay to or cruised about
for two nights and a day.

As soon as the Government had selected Caerdaff for bombardment,
immediate measures were taken to remove the small garrisons and the
inhabitants of the fishing village from possible danger.  When the
Syndicate's note was received by the commandant of the fort, he was
already in receipt of orders from the War Office to evacuate the
fortifications, and to superintend the removal of the fishermen and
their families to a point of safety farther up the coast.

Caerdaff was a place difficult of access by land, the nearest railroad
stations being fifteen or twenty miles away; but on the day after the
arrival of the Syndicate's fleet in the offing, thousands of people
made their way to this part of the country, anxious to see--if
perchance they might find an opportunity to safely see--what might
happen at ten o'clock the next morning.  Officers of the army and navy,
Government officials, press correspondents, in great numbers, and
curious and anxious observers of all classes, hastened to the Welsh
coast.

The little towns where the visitors left the trains were crowded to
overflowing, and every possible conveyance, by which the mountains
lying back of Caerdaff could be reached, was eagerly secured, many
persons, however, being obliged to depend upon their own legs.  Soon
after sunrise of the appointed day the forts, the village, and the
surrounding lower country were entirely deserted, and every point of
vantage on the mountains lying some miles back from the coast was
occupied by excited spectators, nearly every one armed with a
field-glass.

A few of the guns from the fortifications were transported to an
overlooking height, in order that they might be brought into action in
case the repeller, instead of bombarding, should send men in boats to
take possession of the evacuated fortifications, or should attempt any
mining operations.  The gunners for this battery were stationed at a
safe place to the rear, whence they could readily reach their guns if
necessary.

The next day was one of supreme importance to the Syndicate.  On this
day it must make plain to the world, not only what the motor-bomb could
do, but that the motor-bomb did what was done.  Before leaving the
English Channel the director of Repeller No. 11 had received
telegraphic advices from both Europe and America, indicating the
general drift of public opinion in regard to the recent sea-fight; and,
besides these, many English and continental papers had been brought to
him from the French coast.

From all these the director perceived that the cause of the Syndicate
had in a certain way suffered from the manner in which the battle in
the channel had been conducted.  Every newspaper urged that if the
repeller carried guns capable of throwing the bombs which the Syndicate
professed to use, there was no reason why every ship in the British
fleet should not have been destroyed.  But as the repeller had not
fired a single shot at the fleet, and as the battle had been fought
entirely by the crabs, there was every reason to believe that if there
were such things as motor-guns, their range was very short, not as
great as that of the ordinary dynamite cannon.  The great risk run by
one of the crabs in order to disable a dynamite gun-boat seemed an
additional proof of this.

It was urged that the explosions in the water might have been produced
by torpedoes; that the torpedo-boat which had been destroyed was so
near the repeller that an ordinary shell was sufficient to accomplish
the damage that had been done.

To gainsay these assumptions was imperative on the Syndicate's forces.
To firmly establish the prestige of the instantaneous motor was the
object of the war.  Crabs were of but temporary service.  Any nation
could build vessels like them, and there were many means of destroying
them.  The spring armour was a complete defence against ordinary
artillery, but it was not a defence against submarine torpedoes.  The
claims of the Syndicate could be firmly based on nothing but the powers
of absolute annihilation possessed by the instantaneous motor-bomb.

About nine o'clock on the appointed morning, Repeller No. 11, much to
the surprise of the spectators on the high grounds with field-glasses
and telescopes, steamed away from Caerdaff.  What this meant nobody
knew, but the naval military observers immediately suspected that the
Syndicate's vessel had concentrated attention upon Caerdaff in order to
go over to Ireland to do some sort of mischief there.  It was presumed
that the crabs accompanied her, but as they were now at their fighting
depth it was impossible to see them at so great a distance.

But it was soon perceived that Repeller No. 11 had no intention of
running away, nor of going over to Ireland.  From slowly cruising about
four or five miles off shore, she had steamed westward until she had
reached a point which, according to the calculations of her scientific
corps, was nine marine miles from Caerdaff.  There she lay to against a
strong breeze from the east.

It was not yet ten o'clock when the officer in charge of the starboard
gun remarked to the director that he suppose that it would not be
necessary to give the smoke signals, as had been done in the channel,
as now all the crabs were lying near them.  The director reflected a
moment, and then ordered that the signals should be given at every
discharge of the gun, and that the columns of black smoke should be
shot up to their greatest height.

At precisely ten o'clock, up rose from Repeller No.  11 two tall jets
of black smoke.  Up rose from the promontory of Caerdaff, a heavy gray
cloud, like an immense balloon, and then the people on the hill-tops
and highlands felt a sharp shock of the ground and rocks beneath them,
and heard the sound of a terrible but momentary grinding crush.

As the cloud began to settle, it was borne out to sea by the wind, and
then it was revealed that the fortifications of Caerdaff had
disappeared.

In ten minutes there was another smoke signal, and a great cloud over
the castellated structure on the other side of the bay.  The cloud
passed away, leaving a vacant space on the other side of the bay.

The second shock sent a panic through the crowd of spectators.  The
next earthquake bomb might strike among them.  Down the eastern <DW72>s
ran hundreds of them, leaving only a few of the bravest civilians, the
reporters of the press, and the naval and military men.

The next motor-bomb descended into the fishing village, the comminuted
particles of which, being mostly of light material, floated far out to
sea.

The detachment of artillerists who had been deputed to man the guns on
the heights which commanded the bay had been ordered to fall back to
the mountains as soon as it had been seen that it was not the intention
of the repeller to send boats on shore.  The most courageous of the
spectators trembled a little when the fourth bomb was discharged, for
it came farther inland, and struck the height on which the battery had
been placed, removing all vestiges of the guns, caissons, and the ledge
of rock on which they had stood.

The motor-bombs which the repeller was now discharging were of the
largest size and greatest power, and a dozen more of them were
discharged at intervals of a few minutes.  The promontory on which the
fortifications had stood was annihilated, and the waters of the bay
swept over its foundations.  Soon afterward the head of the bay seemed
madly rushing out to sea, but quickly surged back to fill the chasm
which yawned at the spot where the village had been.

The dense clouds were now upheaved at such short intervals that the
scene of devastation was completely shut out from the observers on the
hills; but every few minutes they felt a sickening shock, and heard a
momentary and horrible crash and hiss which seemed to fill all the air.
The instantaneous motor-bombs were tearing up the sea-board, and
grinding it to atoms.

It was not yet noon when the bombardment ceased.  No more puffs of
black smoke came up from the distant repeller, and the vast spreading
mass of clouds moved seaward, dropping down upon St. George's Channel
in a rain of stone dust.  Then the repeller steamed shoreward, and when
she was within three or four miles of the coast she ran up a large
white flag in token that her task was ended.

This sign that the bombardment had ceased was accepted in good faith;
and as some of the military and naval men had carefully noted that each
puff from the repeller was accompanied by a shock, it was considered
certain that all the bombs which had been discharged had acted, and
that, consequently, no further danger was to be apprehended from them.
In spite of this announcement many of the spectators would not leave
their position on the hills, but a hundred or more of curious and
courageous men ventured down into the plain.

That part of the sea-coast where Caerdaff had been was a new country,
about which men wandered slowly and cautiously with sudden
exclamations, of amazement and awe.  There were no longer promontories
jutting out into the sea; there were no hillocks and rocky terraces
rising inland.  In a vast plain, shaven and shorn down to a common
level of scarred and pallid rock, there lay an immense chasm two miles
and a half long, half a mile wide, and so deep that shuddering men
could stand and look down upon the rent and riven rocks upon which had
rested that portion of the Welsh coast which had now blown out to sea.

An officer of the Royal Engineers stood on the seaward edge of this
yawning abyss; then he walked over to the almost circular body of water
which occupied the place where the fishing village had been, and into
which the waters of the bay had flowed.  When this officer returned to
London he wrote a report to the effect that a ship canal, less than an
eighth of a mile long, leading from the newly formed lake at the head
of the bay, would make of this chasm, when filled by the sea, the
finest and most thoroughly protected inland basin for ships of all
sizes on the British coast.  But before this report received due
official consideration the idea had been suggested and elaborated in a
dozen newspapers.

Accounts and reports of all kinds describing the destruction of
Caerdaff, and of the place in which it had stood, filled the newspapers
of the world.  Photographs and pictures of Caerdaff as it had been and
as it then was were produced with marvellous rapidity, and the
earthquake bomb of the American War Syndicate was the subject of
excited conversation in every civilized country.

The British Ministry was now the calmest body of men in Europe.  The
great opposition storm had died away, the great war storm had ceased,
and the wisest British statesmen saw the unmistakable path of national
policy lying plain and open before them.  There was no longer time for
arguments and struggles with opponents or enemies, internal or
external.  There was even no longer time for the discussion of
measures.  It was the time for the adoption of a measure which
indicated itself, and which did not need discussion.

On the afternoon of the day of the bombardment of Caerdaff, Repeller
No. 11, accompanied by her crabs, steamed for the English Channel.  Two
days afterward there lay off the coast at Brighton, with a white flag
floating high above her, the old Tallapoosa, now naval mistress of the
world.

Near by lay a cable boat, and constant communication by way of France
was kept up between the officers of the American Syndicate and the
repeller.  In a very short time communications were opened between the
repeller and London.

When this last step became known to the public of America, almost as
much excited by the recent events as the public of England, a great
disturbance arose in certain political circles.  It was argued that the
Syndicate had no right to negotiate in any way with the Government of
England; that it had been empowered to carry on a war; and that, if its
duties in this regard had been satisfactorily executed, it must now
retire, and allow the United States Government to attend to its foreign
relations.

But the Syndicate was firm.  It had contracted to bring the war to a
satisfactory conclusion.  When it considered that this had been done,
it would retire and allow the American Government, with whom the
contract had been made, to decide whether or not it had been properly
performed.

The unmistakable path of national policy which had shown itself to the
wisest British statesmen appeared broader and plainer when the
overtures of the American War Syndicate had been received by the
British Government.  The Ministry now perceived that the Syndicate had
not waged war; it had been simply exhibiting the uselessness of war as
at present waged.  Who now could deny that it would be folly to oppose
the resources of ordinary warfare to those of what might be called
prohibitive warfare.

Another idea arose in the minds of the wisest British statesmen.  If
prohibitive warfare were a good thing for America, it would be an
equally good thing for England.  More than that, it would be a better
thing if only these two countries possessed the power of waging
prohibitive warfare.

In three days a convention of peace was concluded between Great Britain
and the American Syndicate acting for the United States, its provisions
being made subject to such future treaties and alliances as the
governments of the two nations might make with each other.  In six days
after the affair at Caerdaff, a committee of the American War Syndicate
was in London, making arrangements, under the favourable auspices of
the British Government, for the formation of an Anglo-American
Syndicate of War.

The Atlantic Ocean now sprang into new life.  It seemed impossible to
imagine whence had come the multitude of vessels which now steamed and
sailed upon its surface.  Among these, going westward, were six crabs,
and the spring-armoured vessel, once the Tallapoosa, going home to a
triumphant reception, such as had never before been accorded to any
vessel, whether of war or peace.

The blockade of the Canadian port, which had been effectively
maintained without incident, was now raised, and the Syndicate's
vessels proceeded to an American port.

The British ironclad, Adamant, at the conclusion of peace was still in
tow of Crab C, and off the coast of Florida.  A vessel was sent down
the coast by the Syndicate to notify Crab C of what had occurred, and
to order it to tow the Adamant to the Bermudas, and there deliver her
to the British authorities.  The vessel sent by the Syndicate, which
was a fast coast-steamer, had scarcely hove in sight of the objects of
her search when she was saluted by a ten-inch shell from the Adamant,
followed almost immediately by two others.  The commander of the
Adamant had no idea that the war was at an end, and had never failed,
during his involuntary cruise, to fire at anything which bore the
American flag, or looked like an American craft.

Fortunately the coast steamer was not struck, and at the top of her
speed retired to a greater distance, whence the Syndicate officer on
board communicated with the crab by smoke signals.

During the time in which Crab C had had charge of the Adamant no
communication had taken place between the two vessels.  Whenever an
air-pipe had been elevated for the purpose of using therein a
speaking-tube, a volley from a machine-gun on the Adamant was poured
upon it, and after several pipes had been shot away the director of the
crab ceased his efforts to confer with those on the ironclad.  It had
been necessary to place the outlets of the ventilating apparatus of the
crab under the forward ends of some of the upper roof-plates.

When Crab C had received her orders, she put about the prow of the
great warship, and proceeded to tow her north-eastward, the commander
of the Adamant taking a parting crack with his heaviest stern-gun at
the vessel which had brought the order for his release.

All the way from the American coast to the Bermuda Islands, the great
Adamant blazed, thundered, and roared, not only because her commander
saw, or fancied he saw, an American vessel, but to notify all crabs,
repellers, and any other vile invention of the enemy that may have been
recently put forth to blemish the sacred surface of the sea, that the
Adamant still floated, with the heaviest coat of mail and the finest
and most complete armament in the world, ready to sink anything hostile
which came near enough--but not too near.

When the commander found that he was bound for the Bermudas, he did not
understand it, unless, indeed, those islands had been captured by the
enemy.  But he did not stop firing.  Indeed, should he find the
Bermudas under the American flag, he would fire at that flag and
whatever carried it, as long as a shot or a shell or a charge of powder
remained to him.

But when he reached British waters, and slowly entering St. George's
harbour, saw around him the British flag floating as proudly as it
floated above his own great ship, he confessed himself utterly
bewildered; but he ordered the men at every gun to stand by their piece
until he was boarded by a boat from the fort, and informed of the true
state of affairs.

But even then, when weary Crab C raised herself from her fighting
depth, and steamed to a dock, the commander of the Adamant could
scarcely refrain from sending a couple of tons of iron into the beastly
sea-devil which had had the impertinence to tow him about against his
will.

No time was lost by the respective Governments of Great Britain and the
United States in ratifying the peace made through the Syndicate, and in
concluding a military and naval alliance, the basis of which should be
the use by these two nations, and by no other nations, of the
instantaneous motor.  The treaty was made and adopted with much more
despatch than generally accompanies such agreements between nations,
for both Governments felt the importance of placing themselves, without
delay, in that position from which, by means of their united control of
paramount methods of warfare, they might become the arbiters of peace.

The desire to evolve that power which should render opposition useless
had long led men from one warlike invention to another.  Every one who
had constructed a new kind of gun, a new kind of armour, or a new
explosive, thought that he had solved the problem, or was on his way to
do so.  The inventor of the instantaneous motor had done it.

The treaty provided that all subjects concerning hostilities between
either or both of the contracting powers and other nations should be
referred to a Joint High Commission, appointed by the two powers; and
if war should be considered necessary, it should be prosecuted and
conducted by the Anglo-American War Syndicate, within limitations
prescribed by the High Commission.

The contract made with the new Syndicate was of the most stringent
order, and contained every provision that ingenuity or foresight of man
could invent or suggest to make it impossible for the Syndicate to
transfer to any other nation the use of the instantaneous motor.

Throughout all classes in sympathy with the Administrative parties of
Great Britain and the United States there was a feeling of jubilant
elation on account of the alliance and the adoption by the two nations
of the means of prohibitive warfare.  This public sentiment acted even
upon the opposition; and the majority of army and navy officers in the
two countries felt bound to admit that the arts of war in which they
had been educated were things of the past.  Of course there were
members of the army and navy in both countries who deprecated the new
state of things.  But there were also men, still living, who deprecated
the abolition of the old wooden seventy-four gun ship.

A British artillery officer conversing with a member of the American
Syndicate at a London club, said to him:--

"Do you know that you made a great mistake in the beginning of your
operations with the motor-guns?  If you had contrived an attachment to
the motor which should have made an infernal thunder-clap and a storm
of smoke at the moment of discharge it would have saved you a lot of
money and time and trouble.  The work of the motor on the Canadian
coast was terrible enough, but people could see no connection between
that and the guns on your vessels.  If you could have sooner shown that
connection you might have saved yourselves the trouble of crossing the
Atlantic.  And, to prove this, one of the most satisfactory points
connected with your work on the Welsh coast was the jet of smoke which
came from the repeller every time she discharged a motor.  If it had
not been for those jets, I believe there would be people now in the
opposition who would swear that Caerdaff had been mined, and that the
Ministry were a party to it."

"Your point is well taken," said the American, "and should it ever be
necessary to discharge any more bombs,--which I hope it may not be,--we
shall take care to show a visible and audible connection between cause
and effect."

"The devil take it, sir!" cried an old captain of an English
ship-of-the-line, who was sitting near by.  "What you are talking about
is not  war!  We might as well send out a Codfish Trust to settle
national disputes.  In the next sea-fight we'll save ourselves the
trouble of gnawing and crunching at the sterns of the enemy.  We'll
simply send a note aboard requesting the foreigner to be so good as to
send us his rudder by bearer, which, if properly marked and numbered,
will be returned to him on the conclusion of peace.  This would do just
as well as twisting it off, and save expense.  No, sir, I will not join
you in a julep!  _I_ have made no alliance over new-fangled inventions!
Waiter, fetch me some rum and hot water!"

In the midst of the profound satisfaction with which the members of the
American War Syndicate regarded the success of their labours,--labours
alike profitable to themselves and to the recently contending
nations,--and in the gratified pride with which they received the
popular and official congratulations which were showered upon them,
there was but one little cloud, one regret.

In the course of the great Syndicate War a life had been lost.  Thomas
Hutchins, while assisting in the loading of coal on one of the
repellers, was accidentally killed by the falling of a derrick.

The Syndicate gave a generous sum to the family of the unfortunate man,
and throughout the United States the occurrence occasioned a deep
feeling of sympathetic regret.  A popular subscription was started to
build a monument to the memory of Hutchins, and contributions came, not
only from all parts of the United States, but from many persons in
Great Britain who wished to assist in the erection of this tribute to
the man who had fallen in the contest which had been of as much benefit
to their country as to his own.

Some weeks after the conclusion of the treaty, a public question was
raised, which at first threatened to annoy the American Government; but
it proved to be of little moment.  An anti-Administration paper in
Peakville, Arkansas, asserted that in the whole of the published treaty
there was not one word in regard to the fisheries question, the
complications arising from which had been the cause of the war.  Other
papers took up the matter, and the Government then discovered that in
drawing up the treaty the fisheries business had been entirely
overlooked.  There was a good deal of surprise in official circles when
this discovery was announced; but as it was considered that the
fisheries question was one which would take care of itself, or be
readily disposed of in connection with a number of other minor points
which remained to be settled between the two countries, it was decided
to take no notice of the implied charge of neglect, and to let the
matter drop.  And as the opposition party took no real interest in the
question, but little more was said about it.

Both countries were too well satisfied with the general result to waste
time or discussion over small matters.  Great Britain had lost some
forts and some ships; but these would have been comparatively useless
in the new system of warfare.  On the other hand, she had gained, not
only the incalculable advantage of the alliance, but a magnificent and
unsurpassed landlocked basin on the coast of Wales.

The United States had been obliged to pay an immense sum on account of
the contract with the War Syndicate, but this was considered money so
well spent, and so much less than an ordinary war would have cost, that
only the most violent anti-Administration journals ever alluded to it.

Reduction of military and naval forces, and gradual disarmament, was
now the policy of the allied nations.  Such forces and such vessels as
might be demanded for the future operations of the War Syndicate were
retained.  A few field batteries of motor-guns were all that would be
needed on land, and a comparatively small number of armoured ships
would suffice to carry the motor-guns that would be required at sea.

Now there would be no more mere exhibitions of the powers of the
instantaneous motor-bomb.  Hereafter, if battles must be fought, they
would be battles of annihilation.

This is the history of the Great Syndicate War.  Whether or not the
Anglo-American Syndicate was ever called upon to make war, it is not to
be stated here.  But certain it is that after the formation of this
Syndicate all the nations of the world began to teach English in their
schools, and the Spirit of Civilization raised her head with a
confident smile.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Great War Syndicate, by Frank Stockton

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