bodies ofconfederates by land, could be fully covered by the inland redoubts andfortifications.
When the orders for evacuation reached the commandant of the fort, heprotested hotly, and urged that his protest be considered. It was notuntil the command had been reiterated both from London and Ottawa, thathe accepted the situation, and with bowed head prepared to leave hispost. All night preparations for evacuation went on, and during thenext morning the garrison left the fort, and established itself farenough away to preclude danger from the explosion of a mine, but nearenough to be available in case of necessity.
During this morning there arrived in the offing another Syndicatevessel. This had started from a northern part of the United States,before the repellers and the crabs, and it had been engaged in laying aprivate submarine cable, which should put the office of the Syndicatein New York in direct communication with its naval forces engaged withthe enemy. Telegraphic connection between the cable boat and RepellerNo. 1 having been established, the Syndicate soon received from itsDirector-in-chief full and comprehensive accounts of what had been doneand what it was proposed to do. Great was the satisfaction among themembers of the Syndicate when these direct and official reports camein. Up to this time they had been obliged to depend upon veryunsatisfactory intelligence communicated from Europe, which had beensupplemented by wild statements and rumours smuggled across theCanadian border.
To counteract the effect of these, a full report was immediately madeby the Syndicate to the Government of the United States, and a bulletindistinctly describing what had happened was issued to the people of thecountry. These reports, which received a world-wide circulation in thenewspapers, created a popular elation in the United States, and gaverise to serious apprehensions and concern in many other countries. Butunder both elation and concern there was a certain doubtfulness. Sofar the Syndicate had been successful; but its style of warfare wasdecidedly experimental, and its forces, in numerical strength at least,were weak. What would happen when the great naval power of GreatBritain should be brought to bear upon the Syndicate, was a questionwhose probable answer was likely to cause apprehension and concern inthe United States, and elation in many other countries.
The commencement of active hostilities had been precipitated by thisSyndicate. In England preparations were making by day an by night tosend upon the coast-lines of the United States a fleet which, innumbers and power, would be greater than that of any naval expeditionin the history of the world. It is no wonder that many people of soberjudgment in America looked upon the affair of the crabs and therepellers as but an incident in the beginning of a great and disastrouswar.
On the morning of the destruction of Fort Pilcher, the Syndicate'svessels moved toward the port, and the steel net was taken up by thetwo crabs, and moved nearer the mouth of the harbour, at a point fromwhich the fort, now in process of evacuation, was in full view. Whenthis had been done, Repeller No. 2 took up her position at a moderatedistance behind the net, and the other vessels stationed themselvesnear by.
The protection of the net was considered necessary, for although therecould be no reasonable doubt that all the torpedoes in the harbour andriver had been exploded, others might be sent out against theSyndicate's vessels; and a torpedo under a crab or a repeller was theenemy most feared by the Syndicate.
About three o'clock the signals between the repellers became veryfrequent, and soon afterwards a truce-boat went out from Repeller No.1. This was rowed with great rapidity, but it was obliged to go muchfarther up the harbour than on previous occasions, in order to deliverits message to an officer of the garrison.
This was to the effect that the evacuation of the fort had beenobserved from the Syndicate's vessels, and although it had beenapparently complete, one of the scientific corps, with a powerfulglass, had discovered a man in one of the outer redoubts, whosepresence there was probably unknown to the officers of the garrison.It was, therefore, earnestly urged that this man be instantly removed;and in order that this might be done, the discharge of the motor-bombwould be postponed half an hour.
The officer received this message, and was disposed to look upon it asa new trick; but as no time was to be lost, he sent a corporal's guardto the fort, and there discovered an Irish sergeant by the name ofKilsey, who had sworn an oath that if every other man in the fort ranaway like a lot of addle-pated sheep, he would not run with them; hewould stand to his post to the last, and when the couple of shipsoutside had got through bombarding the stout walls of the fort, theworld would see that there was at least one British soldier who was notafraid of a bomb, be it little or big. Therefore he had managed toelude observation, and to remain behind.
The sergeant was so hot-headed in his determination to stand by thefort, that it required violence to remove him; and it was not untiltwenty minutes past four that the Syndicate observers perceived that hehad been taken to the hill behind which the garrison was encamped.
As it had been decided that Repeller No. 2 should discharge the nextinstantaneous motor-bomb, there was an anxious desire on the part ofthe operators on that vessel that in this, their first experience, theymight do their duty as well as their comrades on board the otherrepeller had done theirs. The most accurate observations, the mostcareful calculations, were made and re-made, the point to be aimed atbeing about the centre of the fort.
The motor-bomb had been in the cannon for nearly an hour, andeverything had long been ready, when at precisely thirty minutes pastfour o'clock the signal to discharge came from the Director-in-chief;and in four seconds afterwards the index on the scale indicated thatthe gun was in the proper position, and the button was touched.
The motor-bomb was set to act the instant it should touch any portionof the fort, and the effect was different from that of the other bombs.There was a quick, hard shock, but it was all in the air. Thousands ofpanes of glass in the city and in houses for miles around were crackedor broken, birds fell dead or stunned upon the ground, and people onelevations at considerable distances felt as if they had received ablow; but there was no trembling of the ground.
As to the fort, it had entirely disappeared, its particles having beeninstantaneously removed to a great distance in every direction, fallingover such a vast expanse of land and water that their descent wasunobservable.
In the place where the fortress had stood there was a wide tract ofbare earth, which looked as if it had been scraped into a staring deadlevel of gravel and clay. The instantaneous motor-bomb had beenarranged to act almost horizontally.
Few persons, except those who from a distance had been watching thefort with glasses, understood what had happened; but every one in thecity and surrounding country was conscious that something had happenedof a most startling kind, and that it was over in the same instant inwhich they had perceived it. Everywhere there was the noise of fallingwindow-glass. There were those who asserted that for an instant theyhad heard in the distance a grinding crash; and there were others whowere quite sure that they had noticed what might be called a flash ofdarkness, as if something had, with almost unappreciable quickness,passed between them and the sun.
When the officers of the garrison mounted the hill before them andsurveyed the place where their fort had been, there was not one of themwho had sufficient command of himself to write a report of what hadhappened. They gazed at the bare, staring flatness of the shorn bluff,and they looked at each other. This was not war. It was somethingsupernatural, awful! They were not frightened; they were oppressed andappalled. But the military discipline of their minds soon exerted itsforce, and a brief account of the terrific event was transmitted to theauthorities, and Sergeant Kilsey was sentenced to a month in theguard-house.
No one approached the vicinity of the bluff where the fort had stood,for danger might not be over; but every possible point of observationwithin a safe distance was soon crowded with anxious and terrifiedobservers. A feeling of awe was noticeable everywhere. If peoplecould have had a tangible idea of what had occurred, it would ha
ve beendifferent. If the sea had raged, if a vast body of water had beenthrown into the air, if a dense cloud had been suddenly ejected fromthe surface of the earth, they might have formed some opinion about it.But the instantaneous disappearance of a great fortification with alittle more appreciable accompaniment than the sudden tap, as of alittle hammer, upon thousands of window-panes, was something whichtheir intellects could not grasp. It was not to be expected that theordinary mind could appreciate the difference between the action of aninstantaneous motor when imbedded in rocks and earth, and its effect,when opposed by nothing but stone walls, upon or near the surface ofthe earth.
Early the next morning, the little fleet of the Syndicate prepared tocarry out its further orders. The waters of the lower bay were nowentirely deserted, craft of every description having taken refuge inthe upper part of the harbour near and above the city. Therefore, assoon as it was light enough to make observations, Repeller No. 1 didnot hesitate to discharge