en_, the junks had
redoubled their own, and the gunboat was rapidly becoming as riddled as
a sieve, while men were falling fast in every direction. The ship's
funnel was as full of holes as a cullender, the shrouds of the foremast
were cut to pieces on both sides, the mainmast had long since been shot
away, and the wooden deck-houses were mere heaps of splintered wood,
while the bulwarks were in a perfectly ruinous condition. Clearly
something must be done, and done quickly, or the _Su-chen_ would be sunk
beneath their feet.

Ordering his men to leave the four-inch for the time being, and to blaze
away with the smaller pieces and machine-guns, Frobisher ran below to
the magazine to try to discover what was wrong. He found the men there
passing out shell and cartridge quite calmly, unaware that there was
anything wrong on deck, and of course taking no precaution to examine
the stuff before sending it up the hoist.

Frobisher's first action when he got to the magazine was to examine the
outside of the brass cases, and he soon saw--or thought he saw--what was
the matter. When the _Su-chen's_ ammunition had been overhauled at
Tien-tsin, cartridge for the four-inch was one of the sizes of which
there was a shortage, and Frobisher had had a fresh supply put on board.
That fresh supply, he had observed at the time, was stencilled with
Chinese characters in red paint, while the old stock had been stencilled
in black; and he now observed that all the cartridge being passed up
carried the black stencil, and was therefore old stuff--how old he did
not care to think. He at once told the men by signs not to send up any
more black-marked cartridge, but to use only the red-marked; and then,
for the second time that day, he received a shock.

The four-inch gun had been fired more frequently than any other gun, and
the whole of the fresh supply of cartridge of that size had been
exhausted. There was not a single charge left! How bitterly he blamed
himself for not having hove every scrap of the ship's old ammunition
overboard, and filled up entirely with new! But it was no time for
regrets now; the only thing to do was to rectify matters, if possible;
and if not, to make the best of them. Perhaps it might be the primers
that were faulty, he thought, and if so, the situation might yet be
saved, for there was a supply of new primers on board.

Seizing one of the cases in his arms, he rushed on deck with his load,
and there, un