The Great War Syndicate

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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 reached British waters, and slowly entering St. George's harbour, saw around him the British flag floating as proudly as it floated above his own great ship, he confessed himself utterly bewildered; but he ordered the men at every gun to stand by their piece until he was boarded by a boat from the fort, and informed of the true state of affairs.

But even then, when weary Crab C raised herself from her fighting depth, and steamed to a dock, the commander of the Adamant could scarcely refrain from sending a couple of tons of iron into the beastly sea-devil which had had the impertinence to tow him about against his will.

No time was lost by the respective Governments of Great Britain and the United States in ratifying the peace made through the Syndicate, and in concluding a military and naval alliance, the basis of which should be the use by these two nations, and by no other nations, of the instantaneous motor. The treaty was made and adopted with much more despatch than generally accompanies such agreements between nations, for both Governments felt the importance of placing themselves, without delay, in that position from which, by means of their united control of paramount methods of warfare, they might become the arbiters of peace.