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The jumble of low buildings and tents forming the city of San Francisco dwindled, behind; the uproar of voices and hammers died; and heading for the north the Mary Ann clipped merrily along, the Golden Gate entrance on her left, the rolling hills of the California mainland distant on her right. Her passengers numbered thirty-seven about seven more than she ought to hold, decided Charley.
More Uhlans followed, the hoofs of their magnificent horses ringing like thousands of steel hammers breaking stones in a road; and after them the giant siege-guns rumbling, growling, the mitrailleuse with drag-chains ringing, the field-pieces with creaking axles, complaining brakes, the grinding of the steel-rimmed wheels against the stones echoing and re-echoing from the house front.
And yet from further down the township road there came the whirr and shriek of Smart's buzz-saw rending its way through hard-wood logs; the clang and jangle of Cullen's hammers as they fell on iron and anvil; and more sleepily, more drowsily, more in keeping with the hot languor of the day, the hum of the children's voices as they chanted their task in unison on the open verandah of the school-house.
The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had abandoned in all the corners at the moment of flight. In less than a second, these seven men, horrible to behold, had grouped themselves in an attitude of defence, one with his meat-axe, another with his key, another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. Thenardier had his knife in his fist.
More men down, more men pushed into the firing line more death-piping bullets than ever. The air was a sieve of them; they beat on the boulders like a million hammers; they tore the turf like a harrow. Another ridge crowned, another welcoming, whistling gust of perdition, more men down, more pushed into the firing line. Half the officers were down; the men puffed and stumbled on.
But the woods have receded in some places, and up from the right comes the sound of clashing machinery, telling that the Merle river is performing its mission at last, setting in motion saws and hammers and spindles, but in so unpretending a manner that no miniature city has sprung up on its banks as yet; and long may that day be distant.
It is a singular fact, as showing the readiness of the Russian and other foreign Governments to adopt at an early date any mechanical improvement of ascertained utility, that I supplied steam hammers to the Russian Government twelve months before our Admiralty availed themselves of its energetic action.
The Melvilles have been putting up a show of building a submarine to beat ours. This fire betrays the fact that no boat is being built here. Nothing here but iron plates and the hammers with which the workmen have been beating every day!" "Of all idiotic things!" exclaimed Hal. The three submarine boys came upon Mr. Farnum standing in the watching crowd and gleefully told him of the empty shed.
Then he asked me many more questions; if I had always stayed out there with my husband, and why I did not live in the East, as so many army women did; and all the time I could hear the dull thud of the carpenters' hammers, for they were building even then the board seats for the public who would witness the inaugural ceremonies of his successor, and with each stroke of the hammer, his face seemed to grow more sad.
"Bring the irons forward, there!" shouted Vickers, hastening from his perilous position; and before the last man had filed past the still smoking match, the cling of hammers announced that the Crow had resumed those fetters which had been knocked off his dainty limbs a month previously in the Bay of Biscay.
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