a soldier than to suppose that he could be gulled by a trick
like this.

No thought of actual danger entered the mind of the commandant. It had
been easy enough to sink a great torpedo in the harbour, and the
unguarded bluffs of Fort Pilcher offered every opportunity to the
scoundrels who may have worked at their mines through the nights of
several months. But a mine under the fort which he commanded was an
impossibility; its guarded outposts prevented any such method of
attack. At a bomb, or a dozen, or a hundred of the Syndicate's bombs
he snapped his fingers. He could throw bombs as well.

Nothing would please him better than that those ark-like ships in the
offing should come near enough for an artillery fight. A few tons of
solid shot and shell dropped on top of them might be a very conclusive
answer to their impudent demands.

The letter from the Syndicate, together with his own convictions on the
subject, were communicated by the commandant to the military
authorities of the port, and to the War Office of the Dominion. The
news of what had happened that day had already been cabled across the
Atlantic back to the United States, and all over the world; and the
profound impression created by it was intensified when it became known
what the Syndicate proposed to do the next day. Orders and advices
from the British Admiralty and War Office sped across the ocean, and
that night few of the leaders in government circles in England or
Canada closed their eyes.

The opinions of the commandant of the fort were received with but
little favour by the military and naval authorities. Great
preparations were already ordered to repel and crush this most
audacious attack upon the port, but in the mean time it was highly
desirable that the utmost caution and prudence should be observed.
Three men-of-war had already been disabled by the novel and destructive
machines of the enemy, and it had been ordered that for the present no
more vessels of the British navy be allowed to approach the crabs of
the Syndicate.

Whether it was a mine or a bomb which had been used in the destruction
of the unfinished works of Fort Pilcher, it would be impossible to
determine until an official survey had been made of the ruins; but, in
any event, it would be wise and humane not to expose the garrison of
the fort on the south side of the harbour to the danger which had
overtaken the works on the opposite shore. If, contrary to the opinio