Part 11

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.