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skipper pedalled, the motor snorted, and the propeller began to revolve. Faster, faster spun the blades as the clumsy machine gained way, until the propeller was nothing but a halo, and its loud hum almost drowned the throbbing of the motor. The Thing buzzed down the street like a cockchafer, and, when clear of the houses, it soared away steadily into the moonlight, shedding its wheels like the skin of a chrysalis. This was repeated successfully eleven times, but when the last machine, manned by the pink-cheeked second officer, should have left its wheels and soared away into the night, there was a flash, and a violent detonation shook the houses. Fragments rattled back among those watching two hundred yards away.

"There go the bravest men I've ever met," remarked the chief of raiders. As he reached the hole blown in the road, he added-"poor young fellow!" and his voice was even a little more guttural than usual.

IV.

It was nearly four in the morning, and "all was well" when the "plumber," reaching his post on the bridge once again, made himself snug on a plank resting upon two sacks of fish-bolts. The pile-driver still insulted the ear with its din, the steam and the flare-lights still roared, and the water lapped against the timbers, while the mouth-organ whined a hymn-tune a short distance away.

A sudden biss, and-"plop" into the river, not a pile's length away, fell something; all but simultaneously, with the muffled report of an explosion under water, a column of spray shot up, and falling backward revealed a heaving blister of mud, just visible through the mist. The men playing dropped their cards and sat up, the whine of the mouth-organ froze in the middle of a bar, but the pile-driver continued its

blows, for the fat man still mechanically jerked the string, though his eyes were all but starting out of his head. Silent, stupefied surprise held all. The mud fountain had barely subsided, when -a second hiss and splash close along. side the bridge, and another subaqueous explosion followed with its geyser of mud and water, which, falling on the bridge, would have washed the dazed fat man away but for the string to which he clung. At last the pile driver stopped. Barely had the soused soldiers got their breath after this douche, when they were shaken by a racking detonation some thirty yards back along the bridge, accompanied by the sound of rending timber. The air hummed with fragments, while all near the end of the doomed bridge lay prostrated by the blast of this shock. Still another detonation followed, this time right among the men, as the bomb struck a sack of bolts. Bodies were thrown right and left mingled with a volley of bolts, which shrieked as they spun through the air, dealing death all round. It was worse than any shrapnel-shell, for these missiles were heavy and jagged as potleg, and the force be hind them was terrific. The boiler must have been pierced by one, for it burst with a deep roar, capsizing the truck, and the whole machine toppled over into the swirl below, but not before a cloud of steam had gushed out. scalding the maimed and helpless men close by. To add to the horror, the wrought-iron reservoir of the flarelight was shattered; the blazing oil poured out over the timbers into the water and spread in a flaming film, momentarily lighting up the inferno before it was swept down-stream. cries of the mangled filled the air.

The

After a minute's respite, a faint crash sounded overhead, succeeded by a burst of yellow light, and two flaming masses fell, spinning in a sickening spiral, plumb on to the girder-bridge above.

where their flight ended in a double detonation against the iron. Again the sound of flying metal filled the air. This sudden cataclysm was too much. Men born of women could stand no more; discipline was lost, and a general wail rose up. Those who had for day and night toiled like slaves, dropped their tools, their work, and fled off the bridges towards shore.

A bouquet of dazzling red stars flamed out on high with a soft liquid report, and slowly floated to earth. In the crimson glow the panic-stricken fugitives paused in terror. What was coming next? There was not much time to doubt, for a succession of flashes and detonations round the corrugated-iron dynamo-shed showed where the attack was falling. These ended in one report with a metallic ring, for which there was no flash, and the electric light went out as a grinding crash sounded from the shed. A second shower of red stars slowly sank to earth. Then, with many little explosions, fires sprang up in the "yard" away by the station. Most of them soon burned out without doing damage, but the stacks of forage had been touched and burst into a blaze. As the dense clouds of smoke and long tongues of flame mounted up, from overhead a shower of magnesium stars were wafted gently downwards, lighting the whole landscape as they fell. The work of destruction ceased. In the intense light, the flying machines, as they circled round, were visible to all those above the mist.

Rifle-shots rang out, close by at first, then growing into a general fusilade, which became fainter in the distance, like an irregular feu-de-joie, towards the farthest outpost line, marking the course of the angels of destruction, still to be seen in the light of the conflagration. This wild shooting was not quite without result, for a mass of fire was Blackwood's Magazine.

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A solitary man stood by a hedge. In his hand was a charred pole, on top of which a light, screened from below, was burning feebly. Close by a hobbled horse cropped the scant grass. No other sound broke the stillness of the night as the man gazed steadily upwards. The moon had sunk and the stars were growing pale in the gray of false dawn, when the horse threw up his head and snorted. The man gave no sign. A moment afterwards he heard a faint rustle in the sky as of flighting geese. Ghostly in the mysterious light a shape loomed up and swept past overhead on a long slant. Eight times this happened in quick succession. To the weary eyes of the watcher the shapes seemed to be trayelling in long swoops-now up, now down-and slower than when they had passed him on their outward journey.

For the others that he had seen go out he waited,-waited till the hills to the east stood out purple against the blushing sky,-but waited in vain.

BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.

The unfortunate misunderstanding which has arisen between Sir A. Swettenham, the Governor of Jamaica, and Rear-Admiral Davis, of the United States Navy, is happily understood in its real bearings by the people of both nations. A Governor, harassed and overworked after a great calamity, and living amid scenes of appalling misery, receives an offer of help from the fleet of a friendly Power. He declines it, declaring himself competent to meet all demands; but the friendly Admiral, thinking, no doubt, that all hands are needed, and that the laws of official etiquette should be silent during such a crisis, lands bluejackets, and helps to clear away débris and preserve order. Thereupon the Governor, while thanking him for his good intentions, begs him to withdraw in a letter which, to say the least of it, is unfortunately expressed, while he also declines all further American offers of relief. No other course is left for the Admiral but to depart with as much dignity as possible. The whole incident is exceedingly regrettable, but at the same time we are not disposed to make much of it. If etiquette may be overlooked in a crisis, so also may lapses of taste. The most that can be said against Admiral Davis is that, in the absence of British warships, he thought it his duty to act in the way that a British Admiral might have done, and forget for the occasion, that he represented a foreign Power. History can show more than one occasion when both British and American naval commanders have been guilty of the same lapse of memory with the happiest results. He may have committed a breach of etiquette, which in the circumstances should have been welcomed by the representative of Britain.

The worst that can be said of Sir A. Swettenham is, not so much that he showed himself pedantic when pedantry was undesirable, as that he seems to have lost his temper, and conveyed his wishes to the Admiral in a letter of which the flippancy is hard to defend. His excuse must be that the events of the previous week were not calculated to preserve a judicial and balanced temper of mind. The incident, as we have said, has passed off harmlessly. The Governor has conveyed his official thanks to the United States Administration, and Sir Edward Grey, on behalf of the British Government, has expressed his gratitude to Admiral Davis for his services, and has instituted an inquiry to determine the authenticity of Sir A. Swettenham's letter. The United States Government have announced their intention of letting the matter drop, since they consider that "the action of one man at a time of great distress and mental strain should not be the means of raising an unpleasant issue with a great and friendly nation." This seems to us a very proper course to take, and it is one which the American Press, which is always very jealous of its country's dignity, is fully prepared to endorse. There is no need of officious disclaimers by public men in this country, or of any obsequious apologies. All Englishmen and Americans understand perfectly well what has happened, and make every allowance.

Fortunately, at the time of the friction in Jamaica Mr. Root, the Ameriican Secretary of State, was on a visit to Canada as the guest of Lord Grey. After the President, Mr. Root is the most distinguished of American statesmen. If Mr. Roosevelt were to resign, he would probably succeed him in the

Republican leadership, and in any case is the most authoritative and trusted exponent of the Roosevelt policy. He has given the Monroe doctrine its modern form, and he has done more than any other man, not even excepting the President, to interpret it rationally in practice. To-day he may fairly be claimed as the chief authority on American foreign policy, the exponent of the new American Imperialism, but with it all a wise and cautious statesman, in whom impulse is ever subservient to reflection. He has always been conspicuously friendly to Britain, and the visit which he is paying to Canada, in return for that of the Canadian Governor-General to the States, cannot fail to bear fruit in the relations between the two countries. He has talked frankly to interviewers of his impressions of the development of Canada, a land which he knows well, and on Tuesday at the Canadian Club at Ottawa he delivered one of those long and eloquent panegyrics which seem to be the monopoly of American public men in their visits to other countries. Every one, he said, who had been born and bred like himself under the English common law, and under English principles of liberty and justice, must feel at home in Canada. For forty years he had watched her development, and he had seen wonders. "Feeble, illcompacted, separate, dependent Colonies had grown into a great and vigorous nation." Canada had found wealth, and she had found statesmanship. What seems specially to have impressed Mr. Root was the fact that all classes in Canada were deeply interested in politics. Without such a universal interest true self-government is impossible, and we may detect a note of regret in the tone of a statesman in whose country politics do not always attract the best minds and the most strenuous wills. In the conclusion of his speech he declared that the Amer

ican people looked upon the great material and spiritual progress of Canada without jealousy, nay, rather with admiration and hope. There was a patriotism of the American Continent as well as of Canada or the United States. Their pioneers were of the same race and had grappled with the same problems. To-day, in spite of differences, the same questions were occupying their minds. Mr. Root did not blink the possibilities of friction. The two peoples were loyal to different national ideals, and in that loyalty lay their strength. Difficulties were bound to arise, but let them remember that for ninety years, under a simple interchange of Notes dealing with the armament on the Great Lakes, the two countries had been living side by side in peace. If this had been possible in the difficult early years of both nations, when national susceptibilities are more tender, and opportunities for quarrels more numerous, surely there was reason to hope that the future might reproduce the past.

Mr. Root has the courage to see that even in a platitude there may be a truth. Blood, after all, is thicker than water,-the maxim with which the American Secretary of State began his speech, and the Canadian Premier concluded. There is an impulse among men brought up under the same traditions to quarrel violently over small matters, but in a crisis to draw instinctively together. We have always argued that, in spite of local friction, there was no real danger to Canada from her great Southern neighbor, because there was no incompatibilty between their national ideals. The United States has her own task of internal and external development, and it need not conflict with Canada's. Moreover, in the Monroe doctrine as stated by Mr. Root and President Roosevelt there is a guarantee of, and not a menace against, Canadian inde

pendence. The two nations of North America, while each following its own career, will permit no interference from any other Power. If Canada is threatened, then the might not only of the British Empire but of the United States will awake for her defence. Mr. Root's speech convinces us, if anything were needed, that there is nothing irThe Spectator.

reconcilable between the political and economic advance of Canada and the interests of the United States. In small and crowded continents one nation may increase only at the expense of the others; but in the wider spaces of the West there is room for independent growth, and in consequence for a sympathetic mutual interest.

THE PROPHET AND THE EARTHQUAKE.

During the eruptions in the Antilles in May 1902, and again after the San Francisco earthquake in May of last year, we attempted to show the relation of those manifestations of earth-force to the broader features of earth-anatomy. We represented the earth's crust as fissured into a number of blocks, each tending to "seek the centre out," but sinking at diverse rates; some, such as the North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Pacific blocks, sink towards it the most rapidly, while others, sinking least rapidly, form the four great continental blocks of Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. Where the larger blocks meet are smaller ones, and a notable one is the depression of the Caribbean Sea with the small elevated blocks of the Antilles at its outer border, Here, at the meeting-place of the greatest lines of strain on the earth's surface, is a region of constant movement and of excessive movement. Here in Jamaica, for example, is one of the few places on this earth where, within fairly late geological times, deposits have been raised from ocean abyss to mountain summit. Small wonder that, following on recent earthmovements along the backbone of the two Americas and the long-continued eruptions in the Lesser Antilles, there should at last have ensued a disturbance in Jamaica. It is too early to speak definitely as to the origin and

cause of the disturbance, but it appears that there has been considerable sinking along the sea-edge of the upraised Jamaican block, and we may suppose that this has been in preparation for some years by the drain of underlying material towards the active volcanoes. The sudden snap at the edges where the raised block and the depressed area meet caused the shock of the earthquake, and was followed by the foundering of the floor with the forcing-up of mud along the crack. Kingston itself stands, or stood, on loose rocks of recent formation; it was not these that snapped, but the underlying harder rocks, while the grindingup of the soft rocks produced the mudflow.

With our general knowledge of the region, and with the memory of Port Royal, all this might have been predicted. But no man could have foretold the day or the hour of the earthquake's coming. "Professor Novack," it is true, has seized the occasion once more to vaunt in the "Times" the merits of his weather-plant, which not only forecasts weather but predicts earthquakes, and he states that, lecturing at Havana in 1906, he "said that a catastrophe would occur in Jamaica in a few years." Rather vague, but then he had run out of Abrus plants; when he has them in working order he will "be able to predict, not only the nature

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