ram her antagonist and run her aground.
The nimble foe avoided the blow, though struck a grinding, crushing
side-swipe.

The little _Monitor_ now stuck her nose squarely against the side of the
_Merrimac_, held it there, and fired both her eleven-inch guns against
the walls of the Southerner.

The charge of powder was not heavy enough. No harm was done. The impact
of the shots had merely forced the sloping sides an inch or two.

The captain of the _Merrimac_ turned to his men in sharp command.

"All hands on deck. Board and capture her!"

The smoke-smeared crew swarmed to the portholes and were just in the act
of springing on the decks of the _Monitor_, when she backed quickly and
dropped down stream.

After six hours of thunder in each other's faces the _Monitor_ drew
away into the shoal waters guarding the _Minnesota_.

The _Merrimac_ could not follow her in the shallows and at two o'clock
turned her prow again toward Sewell's Point.

The battle was a drawn conflict. But the plucky little _Monitor_ had won
a tremendous moral victory. She had rescued the navy in the nick of
time. The Government at Washington once more breathed.

From the heights of rejoicing the South sank again to the bitterness of
failure. For twenty-four hours her flag had been mistress of the seas.
Jefferson Davis saw the hope of peace fade into the certainty of a
struggle for the possession of Richmond.

The way had been cleared. McClellan's two hundred thousand men were
rushing on their transports for the Virginia peninsula.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER

Long before Jennie Barton arrived in Richmond Socola had waked to the
realization of the fact that he had been caught in the trap he had set
for another. He had laughed at his growing interest in the slender dark
little Southerner. He imagined that he had hypnotized himself into the
idea that he really liked her. He had kept no account of the number of
visits he had made. They were part of his programme. They had grown so
swiftly into the habit of his thought and life he had not stopped to
question the motive that prompted his zeal in pressing his attentions.

In fact his mind had become so evenly adjusted to hers, his happiness
had been so quietly perfect, he had lost sight of the fact that he was
pressing his attentions at all.

The day she was suddenly called South and he said good-by with her brown
eyes looking so frankly into his he was brought sharply