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Suddenly some part of the ironclad's tackling about the mainsail gave way, the head of the vessel fell to leeward; next moment she went crashing into the Lively Poll, and cut her down to the water's edge. The ironclad seemed to rebound and tremble for a moment, and then passed on.
Several times his knees or his hands slipped, making the spar quiver ominously, but, fortunately, he retained his hold on the pole, and at last, after many a narrow escape, arrived under the ironclad's overhanging counter.
It gave a graphic description of how the 'Vesta' had engaged at close quarters a Turkish ironclad, killing her crew; how officers in European uniform had been seen directing the working of the ironclad's guns, &c.; how her sides were crimson with the torrents of blood pouring from her decks, and how she would have been surely captured had the 'Vesta' been provided with sufficient ammunition to enable her to continue the bloody fight.
The impact was very slight, however, and Jim presently had his little craft securely moored alongside. He then got overboard on to the boom, with half a dozen men, and, carrying the bomb gingerly in his arms, and followed by his men bearing one of the torpedo-spars, made his way round to that portion of the timber which floated opposite the ironclad's stern.
Although old, she was armed with the newest weapons for the instruction of naval men in gunnery, and though these guns were of small calibre, and therefore of little use against the thick armour of the ironclad, she steamed out from behind the mole and replied heroically to the Huascar's fire, killing twelve men who were working the monitor's machine-guns, jamming one of the turret-tracks, cutting one of the anchor cables, and nearly wrecking the Huascar's new foremast which had been put in at Valparaiso, before one of the ironclad's 10-inch shells burst in her hold and blew the bottom clean out of her.
"The ironclad's fire," reported the officer in command, "made it impossible to man the two guns in the rear, and I made no attempt to do so." That night the fort was evacuated and blown up. The following day the Chickasaw threw some shells into Fort Gaines, in consequence of which, and of the progress made by General Granger in his approaches, that work was surrendered on the 7th of August.
Some magnificent pieces, when touched by the ironclad's power, shiver into thousands of fragments, others pass our vessel's side, hard as iron, to be wafted on to the Gulf Stream, there to come under a warmer influence. This Arctic scene causes our captain and his officers to look rather serious, and they mount at times to the fore-topgallant mast.
It was Nettie, with some coquettish dark wrap about her, and the green glare shining on her sweet face and white throat. I could see her expression, stricken with dismay and terror, at my advance, as though something had seized her by the heart and held her still a target for my shots. "Boom!" came the ironclad's gunshot like a command. "Bang!" the bullet leapt from my hand.
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