The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1889-04-25
HENDERSON, \. c.. THURSDAY. APR1I Is. 1889

allowed to proceed to his anchorage in
Portsmouth harbor. The parole was
given, and the dynamite gunboat, 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 n crab,
and the vice admiral commanding the
fleet had signaled not to advance until
further orders.
The crabs We're 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 p eculiar character.
The British vice admiral did not In
tend to remain in this quiescent condi-
ton. 1t 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 by the crabs, and some of which
were now drifting dangerously near to
each other. Dispatches had been semitic
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 be directed entirely against the
repeller. 1t would be useless to devote
any further attention to the crabs, espe-
cially in their present positions. But if
the chief vessel of the syndicate's feet,
with its spring arnnor, and its 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 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
irorclads 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 eurv-
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 4 bomb discharged from
them would fall into the sea mile and
a half ahead. Slowly turning her bow
from side to side, SO that the guns would
cover range Of nearly half circle, the
instantaneous motor bombs of the re-
peller We're discharged, one every half
minute.
One of the most appalling character
istics of the motor bombs was the silence
which accompanied their discharge and
| action. No noisc was heard, except the
| flash Of sound cccasioned 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 q roaring, seething cal
dron, followed out of the waters and out
| of the very bottom of the channel. Into
this chasm the cloud quickly came down,
condensed into vast body of water,
which fell, with the roar of a cyclone,
into the dreadful abyss from which il
had been torn, before the Kissing walls
of the great hollow had half filled it with
their sweeping surges. The piled UP
mass of the redundant water was still
sending it's maddened pillows tossing and
writhing in every direction toward theil
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 storm
of spray and foam, raging that it had
found its place usurped.
Slowly turning, the repeller discharged
bomb after bomb, building up but of the
very sea itself a barrier against its enc
i, mics. Under these laundering cata.
racts, born in an instant, and coming
down all at once in a plunging storm
into these abysses, with walls of waite,
and floors of cleft and Ghiyered rocks
through this wide belt OF raging turmoil
thrown into new frenzy after the dis
charge Of every bomb-no vessel, no tor
pelo, co,iid pass.
The air driven off in every direction
by tremendous and successive concus
sioris came rushing back in shriekine
| gales, which tore up the waves into
binding foam. For miles in every di
rcction the sea swelled and upieaved
into great peaked waves, the repelle,
rising upon these almost high enough t.
! loo;. down into the awful c!iaslns which
her bombs were making. \ torpedo
'ort. -luglit in one of Ire returning
gales, was hurled forward almost on he1
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 uniucky vessel nearly
swamped her, and when she was swep
baci. BY the rushing waves into les
stormy waters, her officers and crew
lcaped into their boats and deserted her
By rare good fortune their boats wer,
I IL