pedo-boat caught in one of the returning gales was
hurled forward almost on her beam ends until she was under the edge of
one of the vast masses of descending water. The flood which, from even
the outer limits of this falling-sea, poured upon and into the unlucky
vessel nearly swamped her, and when she was swept back by the rushing
waves into less stormy waters, her officers and crew leaped into their
boats and deserted her. By rare good-fortune their boats were kept
afloat in the turbulent sea until they reached the nearest
torpedo-vessel.

Five minutes afterward a small but carefully aimed motor-bomb struck
the nearly swamped vessel, and with the roar of all her own torpedoes
she passed into nothing.

The British Vice-Admiral had carefully watched the repeller through his
glass, and he noticed that simultaneously with the appearance of the
cloud in the air produced by the action of the motor-bombs there were
two puffs of black smoke from the repeller. These were signals to the
crabs to notify them that a motor-gun had been discharged, and thus to
provide against accidents in case a bomb should fail to act. One puff
signified that a bomb had been discharged to the north; two, that it
had gone eastward; and so on. If, therefore, a crab should see a
signal of this kind, and perceive no signs of the action of a bomb, it
would be careful not to approach the repeller from the quarter
indicated. It is true that in case of the failure of a bomb to act,
another bomb would be dropped upon the same spot, but the instructions
of the War Syndicate provided that every possible precaution should be
taken against accidents.

Of course the Vice-Admiral did not understand these signals, nor did he
know that they were signals, but he knew that they accompanied the
discharge of a motor-gun. Once he noticed that there was a short
cessation in the hitherto constant succession of water avalanches, and
during this lull he had seen two puffs from the repeller, and the
destruction, at the same moment, of the deserted torpedo-boat. It was,
therefore, plain enough to him that if a motor-bomb could be placed so
accurately upon one torpedo-boat, and with such terrible result, other
bombs could quite as easily be discharged upon the other torpedo-boats
which formed the advanced line of the fleet. When the barrier of storm
and cataract again began to stretch itself in front of the repeller, he
knew that not only was it impossible for the