The Press., 1889-04-04


 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 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. and rowed to the fort, where letter to the com mandant 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 it's place, retired few miles seaward, where they prepared to lay to for the night.
 The letter brought by the truce boat was read hV the commandant, surrounded by his officers. 1t stated that in twenty four hours from time of writing 1t, which would be at or about o'clock on the next afternoon, bomb would be thrown into the garrisoned fort under the com mand of the officer addressed. As this would result in the entire destruction of the fortifcation, the commandant was earnestly counseled to evacuate the fort before the hour specified.
 Ordinarily the commandant of the fort was of calm and unexcitable tepn- perament. During the astound'-e eyents of that day and the day before ne hao kept his head cool; his judgment, if not correct. was the result of sober and earn est 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 an- ger. ------------~----
 Here was-tf1e culmination of the knav- ish trickery of these constituencies pi- rates who had attacked the port. A tor pedo had been exploded in the harbor, an unfinished fort had been mined and blown up, and all this had been done to | frighten him-a British soldier-in com mand of strong fort, we'll garrisoned and fully supplied with all the muni- tions of war. In the fear that his fort would be destroyed by mystical bomb he was expected to march to 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 it's great guns turned inland, would hold the city at their mercy. There could be no greater insult to sol- dier than to suppose that he could be l gulled by trick like this.
 No thought of actual danger entered the mind of the commandant. It had been easy enough to sink great torpedo In the harbor, and the unguarded bluffs of Fort Pitcher offered every opportu- nifty to the scoundrels, who may have worked at their mines through the nights of several months. But mine under the fort which he commanded was an impossibility; it's guarded outposts pro vented any such method of attack. At bomb, or dozen, or hundred of the syndicate's bombs, he snapped his fin- gers. 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 very
 conclusive answer to their impudent de-
 mands,
 l 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 l all over the world: and Ele profound i'm.