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Updated: May 25, 2025
The overhang of their roofs prevented an attack on their hulls by the Llangaron, but their unmailed hulls were so greatly exposed that a few shot from another ship could easily have destroyed them. But as any ship firing at them would be very likely to hit the Llangaron, their directors felt safe on this point.
Then with the other two they prepared for action, moving considerably in advance of the repeller, which now steamed forward very slowly. The wind was strong from the north-west, and the sea high, the shining tops of the crabs frequently disappearing under the waves. The British fleet came steadily on, headed by the great Llangaron.
The character of the new defence which had been fitted to the Llangaron was known to the Syndicate, and the directors of the two new crabs understood the heavy piece of work which lay before them. But their plans of action had been well considered, and they made straight for the stern of the British ship.
Three of the foremost ironclads, less than two miles away, were heading directly for them, and their rams might be used with but little danger to the Llangaron; but, on the other hand, three swift crabs were heading directly for these ironclads. It was impossible for Crabs Q and R to operate in the usual way. Their massive forceps, lying flat against the top of the cylinder, could not be twisted.
It was, of course, impossible to endeavour to grasp that great cylinder with its rounded ends; their forceps would slip from any portion of its smooth surface on which they should endeavour to lay hold, and no such attempt was made. Keeping near the cylinder, one at each end of it, the two moved slowly after the Llangaron, apparently discouraged.
Consequently, before the arrival of the tugs which had been sent for to tow her into harbour, the Llangaron was well on her way across the channel. A foggy night came on, and the next morning she was ashore on the coast of France, with a mile of water between her and dry land.
Two of the latest constructed and largest crabs, Q and R, headed at full speed to meet the Llangaron, who, as she came on, opened the ball by sending a "rattler" in the shape of a five-hundred-pound shot into the ribs of the repeller, then at least four miles distant, and immediately after began firing her dynamite guns, which were of limited range at the roofs of the advancing crabs.
Higher and higher the crabs arose, their powerful air-pumps working at their greatest capacity, until their ponderous pincers became visible above the water. Then into the minds of the officers of the Llangaron flashed the true object of this uprising, which to the crew had seemed an intention on the part of the sea-devils to clamber on board.
In ten minutes afterward, the Llangaron, rudderless, and with the blades of her propellers shivered and crushed, was slowly turning her starboard to the wind and the sea, and beginning to roll like a log of eight thousand tons. Besides the Llangaron, three ironclads were now drifting broadside to the sea.
The enormous chains they held could not be severed by the greatest pressure, and if both crabs backed at once they would probably do no more than tow the Llangaron stern foremost. There was, moreover, no time to waste in experiments, for other rams would be coming on, and there were not crabs enough to attend to them all. No time was wasted.
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