KE

When the destruction of the forts and the sinking of the battleships at
Portsmouth had been accomplished, John Castellan made about the greatest
mistake in his life, a mistake which had very serious consequences for
those to whom he had sold himself and his terrible invention.

He and his brother Denis formed a very curious contrast, which is
nevertheless not uncommon in Irish families. The British army and navy
can boast no finer soldiers or sailors, and the Empire no more devoted
servants than those who claim Ireland as the land of their birth, and
Denis Castellan was one of these. As the reader may have guessed
already, he and Erskine had only been on the _Cormorant_ because it was
the policy of the Naval Council to keep two of the ablest men in the
service out of sight for a while. Denis, who had a remarkable gift of
tongues, was really one of the most skilful naval _attaches_ in service,
and what he didn't know about the naval affairs of Europe was hardly
worth learning. Erskine had been recognised by the Naval Council which,
under Sir John Fisher, had raised the British Navy to a pitch of
efficiency that was the envy of every nation in the world, except Japan,
as an engineer and inventor of quite extraordinary ability, and while
the _Ithuriel_ was building, they had given him the command of the
_Cormorant_, chiefly because there was hardly anything to do, and
therefore he had ample leisure to do his thinking.

On the other hand John Castellan was an unhappily brilliant example of
that type of Keltic intellect which is incapable of believing the
world-wide truism that the day of small states is passed. He had two
articles of political faith. One was an unshakable belief in the
possibility of Irish independence, and the other, which naturally
followed from the first, was implacable hatred of the Saxon oppressor
whose power and wealth had saved Ireland from invasion for centuries. He
was utterly unable to grasp the Imperial idea, while his brother was as
enthusiastic an Imperialist as ever sailed the seas.

Had it not been for this blind hatred, the disaster which had befallen
the Reserve Fleet would have been repeated at sea on a much vaster
scale; but he allowed his passions to overcome his judgment, and so
saved the Channel Fleet. There lay beneath him defenceless the greatest
naval port of England, with its docks and dockyards, its barracks and
arsenals, its garrisons of soldiers and sailors, and its cro