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 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.