The Blockade Runner — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

0 THH BLOCKADE RUNNER. 69 CHAPTER IX. BENTHAM MEETS THE MERRIMAC. Havina seen Bentham, the loyal gunner, reach the blockading fleet safely, we are compelled in order to follow him to transfer the reader from Wilmington over a space of nearly two months and a long stretch of sea to the deck of a vessel lying within cannon-shot of Fortress Monroe. | _ This vessel is the Cumberland, a ship whose name stands proudly on the annals of time, and whom fame has transferred to a niche of glory. For some time rumors of the building of an iron monster at Norfolk by the Confederates had daily reached the Union fleet lying off the fortress, and glasses had long been trained toward Sewall’s Point, frem which direction the new sweeper of the seas was expected. This formidable foe was the rebuilt United States ship Merrimac, which had been scuttled and sunk by the government forces at the abandoning of the Nor folk Navy Yard. The Confederates had succeeded in raising the hull of the Merrimac, and by a thorough reconstruction, rendered her one of the most powerful war vesseis afloat. To effect this they had cut her hull down to within three feet of the watermark. strengthening her by Comiuicdoo S co 5}