Bitter was the denunciation of the Italian engineer, who was a naturalized citizen, and who had thus proved a traitor to his country, and the government immediately offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for his capture, dead or alive.
"I'd like to earn that reward," said Andy Greggs.
"I would like to capture him," returned Oscar Pelham. "The traitor! He ought to be tortured to death!" Oscar came from a long line of true-blue patriots, and to his mind a traitor was the worst thing to be imagined.
The loss of the Holland I was a sore one for the United States, for during the past year England, Germany and France had constructed submarine boats of more or less efficacy, and it was now felt that we were at a disadvantage so far as this class of vessel was concerned.
But worse news followed. In two days came word that all the other submarine craft were either blown up or seriously damaged.
Soon came the news that a great fleet of foreign warships had been sighted off the coast of Nova Scotia. The guns at the forts in this vicinity had tried to reach the flotilla, but failed, for the foreign vessels had kept well out to sea.
The foreigners were headed southward, and it was felt that they would probably attack Boston or New York.
The foreign vessels numbered at least fifteen and to combat them the United States sent out twelve of their best warships, including the new Columbia, an armored cruiser of eighteen thousand tons displacement and carrying a battery of twelve twenty-pounders and sixteen twenty-inch guns.
The foreign fleet was sighted off Montauk Point and it was seen to head directly for New York Harbor.
It was on a rainy Saturday that the two fleets met, twenty miles off Sandy Hook.