The men who had built the strange craft knew she was anything but a
failure. With eager, excited hands her crew finished the last touch of
her preparations and with her guns shotted she slowly steamed out of the
harbor of Norfolk accompanied by two saucy little improvised gunboats,
the _Beaufort_ and the _Raleigh_.

Her speed was not more than five knots an hour and she steered so badly
the _Beaufort_ was compelled to pull her into the main current of the
channel more than once.

The Federal squadron lay off Newport News, the _Congress_ and the
_Cumberland_ well out in the stream, the _Minnesota_, _Roanoke_ and _St.
Lawrence_ further down toward Fortress Monroe. The _Congress_,
_Cumberland_ and _St. Lawrence_ mounted one hundred and twenty-four
guns, twenty-two of them of nine-inch caliber. Their crews aggregated
more than a thousand men.

The new crack steam frigates _Minnesota_ and _Roanoke_ had crews of six
hundred men each and carried more than eighty guns of nine and
eleven-inch caliber. That any single craft afloat would dare attack such
a squadron was preposterous.

It was one o'clock before the strange black looking object swung into
the channel and turned her nose up stream toward Newport News.

The crews of the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_ were lounging on deck
enjoying the balmy spring air. It was wash day and the clothes were
fluttering in the breeze.

They couldn't make out the foolish-looking thing at first. It looked
like the top of a long-hipped roof house that had been sawed off at the
eaves and pushed into the water. The two little river steamers that
accompanied the raft seemed to be towing it.

"What 'ell, Bill, is that thing?" a sailor asked his mate on the
_Congress_.

Bill scanned the horizon.

"I give it up, sir," he admitted. "I been a sailin' the seas for forty
years--but that's one on me!"

A battle signal suddenly flashed from the _Cumberland_ and down came the
wash lines.

The _Beaufort_ with a single thirty-two-pounder rifle mounted in her bow
was steaming alongside the port of the strange craft. A puff of white
smoke flared from her single gun and its dull roar waked the still
beautiful waters of the Virginia harbor.

The _Merrimac_ flung her big battle flag into the sky and her tiny
escorts dropped down stream to give her free play. The _Congress_ and
the _Cumberland_ were surprised, but they slipped their anchors in a
jiffy, swung their guns in haste and began pourin