Suddenly it leaped towards him.  The man dodged.  Then the struggle began,—­a contest unheard of; the fragile wrestling with the invulnerable; the human warrior attacking the brazen beast; blind force on the one side, soul on the other.

All this was in the shadow.  It was like an indistinct vision of a miracle.

A soul!—­strangely enough it seemed as if a soul existed within the cannon, but one consumed with hate and rage.  The blind thing seemed to have eyes.  It appeared as though the monster were watching the man.  There was, or at least one might have supposed it, cunning in this mass.  It also chose its opportunity.  It was as though a gigantic insect of iron was endowed with the will of a demon.  Now and then this colossal grass-hopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then falling back on its four wheels, like a tiger on all fours, rush upon the man.  He—­supple, agile, adroit—­writhed like a serpent before these lightning movements.  He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel.  A piece of broken chain remained attached to the carronade.  This bit of chain had twisted in some incomprehensible way around the breech button.

One end of the chain was fastened to the gun-carriage; the other end thrashed wildly around, aggravating the danger with every bound of the cannon.  The screw held it as in a clenched hand, and this chain, multiplying the strokes of the battering-ram by those of the thong, made a terrible whirlwind around the gun,—­a lash of iron in a fist of brass.  This chain complicated the combat.

Despite all this, the man fought.  He even attacked the cannon at times, crawling along by the side of the ship and clutching his handspike and the rope; the cannon seemed to understand his movements, and fled as though suspecting a trap.  The man, nothing daunted, pursued his chase.

Such a struggle must necessarily be brief.  Suddenly the cannon seemed to say to itself:  Now, then, there must be an end to this.  And it stopped.  A crisis was felt to be at hand.  The cannon, as if in suspense, seemed to meditate, or—­for to all intents and purposes it was a living creature—­it really did meditate, some furious design.  All at once it rushed on the gunner, who sprang aside with a laugh, crying out, “Try it again!” as the cannon passed him.  The gun in its fury smashed one of the larboard carronades; then, by the invisible sling in which it seemed to be held, it was thrown to the starboard, towards the man, who escaped.  Three carronades were crushed by its onslaught; then, as though blind and besides itself it turned from the man, and rolled from stern to stem, splintering the latter, and causing a breach in the walls of the prow.  The gunner took refuge at the foot of the ladder, a short distance from the old man, who stood watching.  He held his handspike in readiness.  The cannon seemed aware of it, and without taking the trouble to turn, it rushed backward on the man, as swift as the blow of an axe.  The gunner, if driven up against the side of the ship, would be lost.