of aim could not be made when the object of the
aim was in rapid motion.

But whether or not one or more motor-bombs did strike the mark, or
whether or not one or more vessels were blown into fine particles,
there were a dozen ironclads in that fleet, each of whose commanders
and officers were determined to run into that repeller and crush her,
if so be they held together long enough to reach her.

The commanders of the torpedo-boats had orders to direct their swift
messengers of destruction first against the crabs, for these vessels
were far in advance of the repeller, and coming on with a rapidity
which showed that they were determined upon mischief. If a torpedo,
shot from a torpedo-boat, and speeding swiftly by its own powers
beneath the waves, should strike the submerged hull of a crab, there
would be one crab the less in the English Channel.

As has been said, the Llangaron came rushing on, distancing everything,
even the torpedo-boats. If, before she was obliged to lower her
cylinder, she could get near enough to the almost stationary repeller
to take part in the attack on her, she would then be content to slacken
speed and let the crabs nibble awhile at her stern.

Two of the latest constructed and largest crabs, Q and R, headed at
full speed to meet the Llangaron, who, as she came on, opened the ball
by sending a "rattler" in the shape of a five-hundred-pound shot into
the ribs of the repeller, then at least four miles distant, and
immediately after began firing her dynamite guns, which were of limited
range at the roofs of the advancing crabs.

There were some on board the repeller who, at the moment the great shot
struck her, with a ringing and clangour of steel springs, such as never
was heard before, wished that in her former state of existence she had
been some other vessel than the Tallapoosa.

But every spring sprang back to its place as the great mass of iron
glanced off into the sea. The dynamite bombs flew over the tops of the
crabs, whose rapid motions and slightly exposed surfaces gave little
chance for accurate aim, and in a short time they were too close to the
Llangaron for this class of gun to be used upon them.

As the crabs came nearer, the Llangaron lowered the great steel
cylinder which hung across her stern, until it lay almost entirely
under water, and abaft of her rudder and propeller-blades. She now
moved slowly through the water, and her men greeted the advancing crabs
with