always my motto, and right well has it answered.  The roaring furnaces, the cylindrical boilers, the prisoned steam, the twin screws, the steel shot that crashes like thunder, the fearful impact of the ram, the blanching terror of the supreme moment, the shattered limbs and scattered heads,—­all these were ready, waiting but for the pressure of my finger on the middle button of the boatswain’s mess-waistcoat to speed forth upon their deadly work between the illustrated covers of a shilling pamphlet.

CHAPTER IV.

In another moment the enemy’s fleet had hove in sight.  Our movements in the ten minutes preceding the fatal conflict will be best understood by consulting the annexed diagram:—­

[Illustration]

We advanced in this imposing order for five minutes.  Then came a puff of smoke, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, two thousand men had been literally blown into thin air, their sole remnant being the left shoe of my trusty second in command, Captain GLIMDOWSE.  I trained the two turret-guns until I had got them into perfect condition, and gave the word.  The crash that followed was terrific.  One of the massive missiles went home, and stayed there, no amount of inducement availing to bring it out again to face the battle.  The other, however, behaved as a British missile should, and exploded in the heart of the hostile fleet.  The result was terrific.  French, German and Russian Admirals by the thousand were destroyed, their scattered fragments literally darkening the face of the sun, and a mixed shower of iron, steel, stanchions, bollards, monster guns, Admirals, sailors, stewards, cocked-hats, and Post Captains fell for ten minutes without intermission from the clouds into which they had been driven by the awful force of the explosion.  I turned to my Lieutenant, who was standing beside me, to give a necessary order.  As I was about to address him, the machine-guns in the enemy’s tops belched forth a myriad projectiles, and the unfortunate Lieutenant was swept into eternity.  All that was left of him was his right hand, which, curiously enough, remained for a minute suspended in the air in its proper relative position to what had been the Lieutenant’s body.  I mastered my emotion with an effort, as I reverently grasped and shook the melancholy relic.  Then, shedding a silent tear, I dropped it over the side, and with an aching heart, watched it disappear beneath the wave on which many of its former owner’s happiest hours had been spent.

CHAPTER V.

This catastrophe ended the battle.  The allied fleets had been swept off the face of the ocean.  I packed what remained of H.M.S. Bandersnatch in my tobacco-pouch, attached myself to a hen-coop, and thus floated triumphantly into Portsmouth Harbour.

* * * * *

CHARLEMAGNE AND I.