Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-21

the other vessel, and as the air pipe was near the stern of the crab. ;..,.! therefore et distance from the only visible DOT tion cf 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 guni.oat was ordered to stop his engines and prepare to be towed When this order had lten gi"en the crab moved round tn the how of the gunboat, and graspiiin the c.itwa:er with it's forceps. reversed it's engines and began to back rapidly toward the British fleet. taking with it the captured vessel as g protection against torpedoes while in transit.
 The crab slowed up rot 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 vcs- sel 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 harbor, The parole was given. and the dynamite gunhoat. 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 southeast. 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 crab, | and the vice admiral commanding the | fleet had signaled not to advance until further 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 it's p eculiar character The British vice admiral did not in- tend to remain in this Guiescent condi- | tion. It was. Of course. useless to order | forth his ironclads, simply to see them disabled and set adrift. There was an- ] other 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 ty the crabs, and some of which were now drifting dangerously near to each other. Dispatches had been sent to Portsmouth for tugs, for it would not do to wait until these arrived, and a suffi- cient 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 he directed entirely against the repeler. It would be useless to devote any further attention to the crabs, espe- cially ill their present positions. But if the chief vessel of the syndicate's fleet, with its spring armor, and it's terrible earthquake bombs, could be destroyed, it was quite possible that those sea para sites, 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 gunboat, 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 curv- ing inward, had advanced about mile when Repeller No. II awoke from her seeming sleep, and began to act. The two great guns at her bow were trained upward, so that bomb discharged from them would fall into tho sea q mile and 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 re- peller were discharged, one every half minute.
 One of tho most appalling character istics 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, dense cloud appeared high in the air, above . roaring, seething cal dron, hollowed out of the waters and out of the very bottom of the channel. Into this chasm the clousi quickly came down, condensed into vast body of water, which fell, with the roar of 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. Tho piled up mass of the redundant water was still sending its maddened pillows tossing and writhing in every direction toward their normal level, when another bomb was discharged; another surging abyss ap- peared, another roar of wind and water was heard. and another mountain of furious pillows uplifted itself in a storm of spray and foam, raging that it had found it's place usurped.
 Slowly turning. the repeller discharged bomb after bomb, building up out of the very sea itself barrier against it's enc mics. Under these laundering cata- racts, born in an instant, and coming Inxyy, oil at npCo ;y, e%o~x~,.