To these remarks the director of the Syndicate's vessels paid no
attention, but proceeded to state as briefly and forcibly as possible
that the Lenox had been detained in order that he might have an
opportunity of speaking with her commander, and of informing him that
his action in coming out of the harbour for the purpose of attacking a
British vessel was in direct violation of the contract between the
United States and the Syndicate having charge of the war, and that such
action could not be allowed.

The commander of the Lenox paid no more attention to these words than
the Syndicate's director had given to those he had spoken, but
immediately commenced a violent attack upon the crab. It was
impossible to bring any of the large guns to bear upon her, for she was
almost under the stern of the Lenox; but every means of offence which
infuriated ingenuity could suggest was used against it. Machine guns
were trained to fire almost perpendicularly, and shot after shot was
poured upon that portion of its glistening back which appeared above
the water.

But as these projectiles seemed to have no effect upon the solid back
of Crab H, two great anvils were hoisted at the end of the
spanker-boom, and dropped, one after the other, upon it. The shocks
were tremendous, but the internal construction of the crabs provided,
by means of upright beams, against injury from attacks of this kind,
and the great masses of iron slid off into the sea without doing any
damage.

Finding it impossible to make any impression upon the mailed monster at
his stern, the commander of the Lenox hailed the director of the
repeller, and swore to him through his trumpet that if he did not
immediately order the Lenox to be set free, her heaviest guns should be
brought to bear upon his floating counting-house, and that it should be
sunk, if it took all day to do it.

It would have been a grim satisfaction to the commander of the Lenox to
sink Repeller No. 6, for he knew the vessel when she had belonged to
the United States navy. Before she had been bought by the Syndicate,
and fitted out with spring armour, he had made two long cruises in her,
and he bitterly hated her, from her keel up.

The director of the repeller agreed to release the Lenox the instant
her commander would consent to return to port. No answer was made to
this proposition, but a dynamite gun on the Lenox was brought to bear
upon the Syndicate's vessel. Desiring to avoid any