However, the man went on fighting.  Occasionally, it was the man who attacked the cannon; he would creep along the side of the vessel, bar and rope in hand; and the cannon, as if it understood, and as though suspecting some snare, would flee away.  The man, bent on victory, pursued it.

Such things can not long continue.  The cannon seemed to say to itself, all of a sudden, “Come, now!  Make an end of it!” and it stopped.  One felt that the crisis was at hand.  The cannon, as if in suspense, seemed to have, or really had—­for to all it was a living being—­a ferocious malice prepense.  It made a sudden, quick dash at the gunner.  The gunner sprang out of the way, let it pass by, and cried out to it with a laugh, “Try it again!” The cannon, as if enraged, smashed a carronade on the port side; then, again seized by the invisible sling which controlled it, it was hurled to the starboard side at the man, who made his escape.  Three carronades gave way under the blows of the cannon; then, as if blind and not knowing what more to do, it turned its back on the man, rolled from stern to bow, injured the stern and made a breach in the planking of the prow.  The man took refuge at the foot of the steps, not far from the old man who was looking on.  The gunner held his iron bar in rest.  The cannon seemed to notice it, and without taking the trouble to turn around, slid back on the man, swift as the blow of an axe.  The man, driven against the side of the ship, was lost.  The whole crew cried out with horror.

But the old passenger, till this moment motionless, darted forth more quickly than any of this wildly swift rapidity.  He seized a package of counterfeit assignats, and, at the risk of being crushed, succeeded in throwing it between the wheels of the carronade.  This decisive and perilous movement could not have been made with more exactness and precision by a man trained in all the exercises described in Durosel’s “Manual of Gun Practice at Sea.”

The package had the effect of a clog.  A pebble may stop a log, the branch of a tree turn aside an avalanche.  The carronade stumbled.  The gunner, taking advantage of this critical opportunity, plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels.  The cannon stopped.  It leaned forward.  The man, using the bar as a lever, held it in equilibrium.  The heavy mass was overthrown, with the crash of a falling bell, and the man, rushing with all his might, dripping with perspiration, passed the slipnoose around the bronze neck of the subdued monster.

It was ended.  The man had conquered.  The ant had control over the mastodon; the pygmy had taken the thunderbolt prisoner.

The mariners and sailors clapped their hands.

The whole crew rushed forward with cables and chains, and in an instant the cannon was secured.

The gunner saluted the passenger.

“Sir,” he said, “you have saved my life.”

The old man had resumed his impassive attitude, and made no reply.