The dense clouds were now upheaved at such short intervals that the scene of devastation was completely shut out from the observers on the hills; but every few minutes they felt a sickening shock, and heard a momentary and horrible crash and hiss which seemed to fill all the air. The instantaneous motor-bombs were tearing up the sea-board, and grinding it to atoms.

It was not yet noon when the bombardment ceased. No more puffs of black smoke came up from the distant repeller, and the vast spreading mass of clouds moved seaward, dropping down upon St. George's Channel in a rain of stone dust. Then the repeller steamed shoreward, and when she was within three or four miles of the coast she ran up a large white flag in token that her task was ended.

This sign that the bombardment had ceased was accepted in good faith; and as some of the military and naval men had carefully noted that each puff from the repeller was accompanied by a shock, it was considered certain that all the bombs which had been discharged had acted, and that, consequently, no further danger was to be apprehended from them. In spite of this announcement many of the spectators would not leave their position on the hills, but a hundred or more of curious and courageous men ventured down into the plain.

That part of the sea-coast where Caerdaff had been was a new country, about which men wandered slowly and cautiously with sudden exclamations, of amazement and awe. There were no longer promontories jutting out into the sea; there were no hillocks and rocky terraces rising inland. In a vast plain, shaven and shorn down to a common level of scarred and pallid rock, there lay an immense chasm two miles and a half long, half a mile wide, and so deep that shuddering men could stand and look down upon the rent and riven rocks upon which had rested that portion of the Welsh coast which had now blown out to sea.

An officer of the Royal Engineers stood on the seaward edge of this yawning abyss; then he walked over to the almost circular body of water which occupied the place where the fishing village had been, and into which the waters of the bay had flowed. When this officer returned to London he wrote a report to the effect that a ship canal, less than an eighth of a mile long, leading from the newly formed lake at the head of the bay, would make of this chasm, when filled by the sea, the finest and most thoroughly protected inland basin for ships of all sizes on the British coast. But before this report received due official consideration the idea had been suggested and elaborated in a dozen newspapers.

Accounts and reports of all kinds describing the destruction of Caerdaff, and of the place in which it had stood, filled the newspapers of the world. Photo- graphs and pictures of Caerdaff as it had been and as it then was were produced with marvellous rapidity, and the earthquake bomb of the American War Syndicate was the subject of excited conversation in every civilized country.

The British Ministry was now the calmest body of men in Europe. The great opposition storm had died away, the great war storm had ceased, and the wisest British statesmen saw the unmistakable path of national policy lying plain and open before them. There was no longer time for arguments and struggles with opponents or enemies, internal or external. There was even no longer time for the discussion of measures. It was the time for the adoption of a measure which indicated itself, and which did not need discussion.

On the afternoon of the day of the bombardment of Caerdaff, Repeller No. 11, accompanied by her crabs, steamed for the English Channel. Two days afterward there lay off the coast at Brighton, with a white flag floating high above her, the old Tallapoosa, now naval mistress of the world.

Near by lay a cable boat, and constant communication by way of France was kept up between the officers of the American Syndicate and the repeller. In a very short time communications were opened between the repeller and London.

When this last step became known to the public of America, almost as much excited by the recent events as the public of England, a great disturbance arose in certain political circles. It was argued that the Syndicate had no right to negotiate in any way with the Government of England; that it had been empowered to carry on a war; and that, if its duties in this regard had been satisfactorily executed, it must now retire, and allow the United States Government to attend to its foreign relations.

But the Syndicate was firm. It had contracted to bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion. When it considered that this had been done, it would retire and allow the American Government, with whom the contract had been made, to decide whether or not it had been properly performed.

The unmistakable path of national policy which had shown itself to the wisest British statesmen appeared broader and plainer when the overtures of the American War Syndicate had been received by the British Government. The Ministry now perceived that the Syndicate had not waged war; it had been simply exhibiting the uselessness of war as at present waged. Who now could deny that it would be folly to oppose the resources of ordinary warfare to those of what might be called prohibitive warfare.

Another idea arose in the minds of the wisest British statesmen. If prohibitive warfare were a good thing for America, it would be an equally good thing for England. More than that, it would be a better thing if only these two countries possessed the power of waging prohibitive warfare.

In three days a convention of peace was concluded between Great Britain and the American Syndicate acting for the United States, its provisions being made subject to such future treaties and alliances as the governments of the two nations might make with each other. In six days after the affair at Caerdaff, a committee of the American War Syndicate was in London, making arrangements, under the favourable auspices of the British Government, for the formation of an Anglo-American Syndicate of War.

The Atlantic Ocean now sprang into new life. It seemed impossible to imagine whence had come the multitude of vessels which now steamed and sailed upon its surface. Among these, going westward, were six crabs, and the spring-armoured vessel, once the Tallapoosa, going home to a triumphant reception, such as had never before been accorded to any vessel, whether of war or peace.

The blockade of the Canadian port, which had been effectively maintained without incident, was now raised, and the Syndicate's vessels proceeded to an American port.

The British ironclad, Adamant, at the conclusion of peace was still in tow of Crab C, and off the coast of Florida. A vessel was sent down the coast by the Syndicate to notify Crab C of what had occurred, and to order it to tow the Adamant to the Bermudas, and there deliver her to the British authorities. The vessel sent by the Syndicate, which was a fast coast- steamer, had scarcely hove in sight of the objects of her search when she was saluted by a ten-inch shell from the Adamant, followed almost immediately by two others. The commander of the Adamant had no idea that the war was at an end, and had never failed, during his involuntary cruise, to fire at anything which bore the American flag, or looked like an American craft.

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.

The desire to evolve that power which should render opposition useless had long led men from one warlike invention to another. Every one who had constructed a new kind of gun, a new kind of armour, or a new explosive, thought that he had solved the problem, or was on his way to do so. The inventor of the instantaneous motor had done it.

The treaty provided that all subjects concerning hostilities between either or both of the contracting powers and other nations should be referred to a Joint High Commission, appointed by the two powers; and if war should be considered necessary, it should be prosecuted and conducted by the Anglo-American War Syndicate, within limitations prescribed by the High Commission.

The contract made with the new Syndicate was of the most stringent order, and contained every provision that ingenuity or foresight of man could invent or suggest to make it impossible for the Syndicate to transfer to any other nation the use of the instantaneous motor.