at had occurred, and
to order it to tow the Adamant to the Bermudas, and there deliver her
to the British authorities. The vessel sent by the Syndicate, which
was a fast coast-steamer, had scarcely hove in sight of the objects of
her search when she was saluted by a ten-inch shell from the Adamant,
followed almost immediately by two others. The commander of the
Adamant had no idea that the war was at an end, and had never failed,
during his involuntary cruise, to fire at anything which bore the
American flag, or looked like an American craft.

Fortunately the coast steamer was not struck, and at the top of her
speed retired to a greater distance, whence the Syndicate officer on
board communicated with the crab by smoke signals.

During the time in which Crab C had had charge of the Adamant no
communication had taken place between the two vessels. Whenever an
air-pipe had been elevated for the purpose of using therein a
speaking-tube, a volley from a machine-gun on the Adamant was poured
upon it, and after several pipes had been shot away the director of the
crab ceased his efforts to confer with those on the ironclad. It had
been necessary to place the outlets of the ventilating apparatus of the
crab under the forward ends of some of the upper roof-plates.

When Crab C had received her orders, she put about the prow of the
great warship, and proceeded to tow her north-eastward, the commander
of the Adamant taking a parting crack with his heaviest stern-gun at
the vessel which had brought the order for his release.

All the way from the American coast to the Bermuda Islands, the great
Adamant blazed, thundered, and roared, not only because her commander
saw, or fancied he saw, an American vessel, but to notify all crabs,
repellers, and any other vile invention of the enemy that may have been
recently put forth to blemish the sacred surface of the sea, that the
Adamant still floated, with the heaviest coat of mail and the finest
and most complete armament in the world, ready to sink anything hostile
which came near enough--but not too near.

When the commander found that he was bound for the Bermudas, he did not
understand it, unless, indeed, those islands had been captured by the
enemy. But he did not stop firing. Indeed, should he find the
Bermudas under the American flag, he would fire at that flag and
whatever carried it, as long as a shot or a shell or a charge of powder
remained to him.

But when he rea