bstinacy of the axe; it takes one by surprise,
like the surge of the sea; it flashes like lightning; it is deaf as the
tomb; it weighs ten thousand pounds, and it bounds like a child's ball;
it whirls as it advances, and the circles it describes are intersected
by right angles. And what help is there? How can it be overcome? A
calm succeeds the tempest, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies away, we
replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire; but
what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it be
subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise,
fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no
resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill
it,--it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister life
bestowed on it by the Infinite. The plank beneath sways it to and fro;
it is moved by the ship; the sea lifts the ship, and the wind keeps the
sea in motion. This destroyer is a toy. Its terrible vitality is fed
by the ship, the waves, and the wind, each lending its aid. What is to
be done with this complication? How fetter this monstrous mechanism of
shipwreck? How foresee its coming and goings, its recoils, its halts,
its shocks? Any one of those blows may stave in the side of the
vessel. How can one guard against these terrible gyrations? One has
to do with a projectile that reflects, that has ideas, and changes its
direction at any moment. How can one arrest an object in its course,
whose onslaught must be avoided? The dreadful cannon rushes about,
advances, recedes, strikes to right and to left, flies here and there,
baffles their attempts at capture, sweeps away obstacles, crushing men
like flies.

The extreme danger of the situation comes from the unsteadiness of the
deck. How is one to cope with the caprices of an inclined plane? The
ship had within its depths, so to speak, imprisoned lightning
struggling for escape; something like the rumbling of thunder during an
earthquake. In an instant the crew was on its feet. It was the chief
gunner's fault, who had neglected to fasten the screw-nut of the
breeching chain, and had not thoroughly chocked the four trucks of the
carronade, which allowed play to the frame and the bottom of the
gun-carriage, thereby disarranging the two platforms and parting the
breeching. The lashings were broken, so that the gun was no longer
firm on its carriage. The stati