The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-06-27


ing damaged in several places, began to
cape. The whole ship was filled with the
awful tumult.
The captain promptly recovered his com
posture, and at his order the sailors tire W
down onto the deck everything which could
deaden and check the mad rush of the gun
mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, coils
of rope, extra equipments, and the bales
carried whole cargo; an infamous decep,
ton, which the English considered a fail
trick in war.
But what could these rags avail? Nc
one dared to descend to arrange them in
any useful fashion, and in a few instances
they were mere heaps of lint.
There was just sea enough to render an
accident as complete as possible. A temp.
est would have been desirable; it might
have thrown the gun upside down, and the
four wheels once in the air, the monster
could have been mastered. But the devas-
tation increased. There were gashes and
even fractures in the masts, which, en-
bedded in the wood work of the keel, pierce
the decks Of ships like great round pillars
The mizzen mast was cracked, and the
mainmast itself was injured under the con-
vulsive blows of the gun. The battery
was being destroyed. Ten pieces out OF
the thirty were disabled; the breaches null
tiplied in the side, and the corvette began
to take in water.
The old passenger, who had descended
to the gun deck, looked like form of
stone stationed at the foot of the stairs.
He stood motionless, gazing sternly about
upon the devastation. Indeed, it seemed
impossible to take single step forward.
Each bound of the liberated carronade
menaced the destruction of the vessel. A
few minutes more and shipwreck would be
inevitable.
They must perish or put summary end
to the disastcr-a decision must be made
but how?
What a CONFERENCE.-The cannon They
must check this mad monster. They must
seize this flash of lightning. They must
overthrow this thunder bolt.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville, EDO
you believe in God, chevalier?"
La Vieuville replied, eyes. No. Some
times.''
In tempest?"
eyes; and in moments like this, only
God can aid us here" said Boisberthelot.
All were ,silent-the cannon kept up it's
horrible fracas.
The waves beat against the ship; their
blows from without responded to the
strokes of the cannon.
1t was like hammers alternating.
Suddenly, into the midst of this sort of
inaccessible circus, where the escaped can
non leaped and bounded, there sprang a
man with an iron bar in his hand. 1t was
the author of this catastrophe, the gunner
whose culpable negligence had caused the
accident-the captain of the gun. Having
been the means of bringing about the mis-.
fortune, he desired to repair it. He had
caught up hand spike in one fist, tiller-
rope with slipping moose in the other, and
jumped down into the gun deck. Then a
strange combat began; Titanic strife
the struggle of the gun against the gunner,
a battle between matter and intelligence, a
duel between the inanimate and the human.
The man was posted in an angle, the
bar and rope in his two fists; backed
against one of the riders. settled firmly on
his legs as two pillars of steel, livid, calm,
tragic, rooted as it were in the planks, he
waited.
He waited for the cannon to pass near
him.
The gunner knew his piece, and it
seemed to him that she must recognize her
master. lie had lived long while with
her. How many times had he thrust his
hand between her jaws! 1t was his tame
monster. He began to address it as he
might have done his dog.
"Come ~ said he. Perhaps he loved it.
He seemed to wish that it would turn
toward him.
But to come toward him would be to
spring upon him. Then he would be lost.
How to avoid its crush? There was the
question. All stared in terrified silence.
Not breast respired freely, except, per-
chance that of the old man who alone stood
in the deck with the two combatants, a
stern second.
He might himself he crushed by the
piece. He did not stir.
Beneath them, the blind sea directed the
battle.
CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.