recoiled, burst its chain, and began to rush wildly about.

6. At the moment when the lashings gave way, the gunners were in the battery, some in groups, others standing alone, occupied with such duties as sailors perform when expecting the command to clear for action. The cannon, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men and crushed four at the first blow; then flung back and shot out anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow, glanced off to the larboard side and struck a piece of the battery with such force as to unship it.

7. Then arose the cry of distress. The men rushed to the ladder; the gun-deck emptied in the twinkling of an eye. The enormous cannon was left alone.

She

was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with both. The whole crew, accustomed to laugh in battle, trembled now.

8. The captain and lieutenant, although both brave men, stopped at the head of the stairs, and remained mute, pale, hesitating, looking down on the deck. Some one pushed them aside with his elbow and descended.

One

It was their passenger, the peasant, the man of whom they had been speaking the moment before. When he reached the foot of the ladder he stood still. 9. The cannon came and went along the deck. might have fancied it the living chariot of the prophet's vision. The marine lanterns swinging from the ceiling added a dizzying whirl of lights and shadows. The

shape of the cannon could not be distinguished, so rapid was its course. The whole ship was filled with the awful tumult.

10. The captain promptly recovered his composure, and at his order the sailors threw down into the deck everything which could deaden and check the mad rush of the gun, — mattresses, hammocks, spare-sails, and the bales of false assignats of which the ship carried a full cargo.

But what could these rags avail? No one dare descend to arrange them in any needful fashion, and in a few instants they were mere heaps of lint.

11. There was just enough sea to render an accident as complete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable; it might have thrown the gun upside down, and the four wheels once in the air, the monster could have been captured. But the destruction increased. The mizzenmast was cracked, and the mainmast itself was injured, under the convulsive blows of the gun. The battery was being destroyed. Ten pieces out of thirty were disabled; the breaches multiplied in the side, and the ship began to take in water.

II.

1. The old passenger, who had descended to the gundeck, looked like a form of stone. He stood motionless, gazing sternly about. Indeed, it seemed impossible to take a single step forward.

Each bound of the cannon menaced the destruction of the vessel. A few minutes more, and shipwreck

must come. They must perish or put a summary end to the disaster; a decision must be made; but how?

2. They must check this mad monster. They must seize this flash of lightning. They must overthrow this thunderbolt.

"Do you believe in God, chevalier?" said the captain to the lieutenant.

"Yes. No. Sometimes," was the reply.

"In a tempest?"

"Yes; and in moments like this."

"Only God can aid us here," said the captain.

3. All were silent. Only the cannon kept up its horrible din.

The waves beat against the ship; their blows from without responded to the strokes of the cannon. It was like two hammers alternating.

Suddenly, into the midst of this inaccessible circus there sprang a man with an iron bar in his hand. It was the author of the accident, the gunner whose negligence caused it—the captain of the gun.

4. Having been the means of bringing about the misfortune, he desired to repair it. He had caught up a handspike in one fist, a tiller-rope with a slipping noose in the other, and jumped down into the gun-deck. Then a strange combat began the struggle of the gun against the gunner, a battle between matter and intelligence.

Livid, calm, tragic, rooted as it were in the planks, he waited. He waited for the cannon to pass near him. He began to address it as he might have done his dog.

"Come!" said he.

5. Perhaps he loved it. He seemed to wish it would turn toward him.

But to come toward him would be to spring upon him. Then he would be lost. All stared in terrified silence.

No one breathed freely, except, perchance, the old man, who stood, a stern second, in his place at the foot of the ladder. He might himself be crushed by the piece. He did not stir. Beneath them the blind sea directed the battle.

6. At the instant when, accepting this awful hand-tohand contest, the gunner came near to challenge the cannon, some chance movement of the waves kept it for a moment still, as if stupefied.

"Come on!" the man said to it. It seemed to listen. Suddenly it darted upon him. He avoided the shock. The struggle began-struggle unheard of; the thing of flesh attacking the brazen mute; on the one side blind force, on the other a soul.

The

7. A soul; but you would have said that the cannon had one also a soul filled with rage and hatred. monster seemed to be watching the man.

There was one might have fancied so, at least— cunning in the mass. It became a gigantic insect of metal, having, or seeming to have, the will of a demon. Sometimes it struck the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then, falling back on its four wheels like a tiger upon its four claws, it darted anew on the man.

8. He-supple, agile, adroit -would glide like a snake from the reach of these lightning-like movements.

He avoided the blows; but they fell upon the vessel with continued destruction.

An end of broken chain remained attached to the gun. This chain had twisted itself one could not tell how

about the screw of the breech button. One end of the chain was fastened to the carriage. The other, hanging loose, whirled wildly about the gun.

He crept along

9. Nevertheless, the man fought. Sometimes even it was the man who attacked the cannon. the side, bar and rope in hand, and the cannon had the air of understanding, and fled as if it saw the snare. The man pursued. Such a duel could not last long. The gun seemed suddenly to say to itself, "Come, we must make an end!" and it paused. One felt the approach of a crisis.

10. It sprang unexpectedly upon the gunner. He jumped aside and cried out, with a laugh, "Try again!" The gun, as if in a fury, broke a cannon to larboard, then, seized anew by the invisible sling which held it, was flung to starboard toward the man, who escaped.

Three cannon gave way under the blows of the gun; then, as if blind, and no longer conscious of what it was doing, it turned back on the man, rolling from the stern to the bow, bruising the stern and making a breach in the planking of the prow.

11. The gunner had taken refuge at the foot of the stairs, a few steps from the old man, who was watching. The gunner held his handspike in rest. The cannon seemed to perceive him, and, without taking the trouble