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Updated: May 16, 2025
The projectile one watcher reported, had gone about three hundred yards over the top of the barbette and then dropped into the sea, very little of the force of the explosive having been expended on that. A large piece of the gun had also been lost in the water off shore. "My gun burst! My gun burst!" murmured General Waller, as if unable to comprehend it. "My gun burst it is impossible!"
I certainly gathered from your remarks that the only acquaintance you had with Hussein-ul-Mulk was obtained from the newspapers, and that individual himself has the best of reasons for not publishing his address broadcast." Brett smiled. "You mean," he said, "that Hussein-ul-Mulk does live at No. 11, Rue Barbette." "Why, of course he does," was the irritable answer.
So, without waiting for the admiral's signal for "General action", he pressed one of the electric buttons close to his hand in the wall of the conning-tower, and the two 9.4's in the Chih' Yuen's forward barbette roared out their hoarse defiance, dropping their shells full upon the Yoshino's after turret, where they burst with an explosion like that of a small powder-magazine, but without doing much damage.
The big gun was to be mounted on a barbette near the Gatun locks, pointing out to sea, and the trial shots would be fired over the water. Eventually the gun would be so mounted as to swing in a circle, so as to command the land as well as the water; and, in fact, if the government decided to adopt Tom's giant cannon as the official protective arm of the canal, they would all be so mounted.
Some strange convulsions of the earth had completed the victory; the barbette guns of carved and antique bronze commemorating fruitless and long-forgotten triumphs were dismounted; one turned in the cheeks of its carriage had a trunnion raised piteously in the air like an amputated stump; another, sinking through its rotting chassis, had buried itself to its chase in the crumbling adobe wall.
Brett managed to secure a favourable point whence he could observe the passengers without being seen, for on the platform were stacked hundreds of baskets of fruit and vegetables which had arrived by a local train. There were not many passengers in the express, and among the first to alight were Gros Jean and the three Turks Hussein-ul-Mulk and the two others he had seen in the Rue Barbette.
"I sent the boy to warn you," said Barbette, frightened, "didn't you meet him?" The Chouan rose and struck his wife so violently that she dropped, pale as death, upon the bed. "You cursed woman," he said, "you have killed me!" Then seized with remorse, he took her in his arms. "Barbette!" he cried, "Barbette! Holy Virgin, my hand was too heavy!"
"But it did burst, General," went on the Admiral. "You can see for yourself," and he turned around and waved his hand toward the barbette where the gun had been mounted. All that remained of it now was part of the temporary carriage, and a small under-portion of the muzzle. The entire breech, with the great block, had been blown into fragments, so powerful was the powder used.
No barbette or merely embrasured battery of that day could stand up against the twenty or more heavy guns carried on each broadside by the steam-frigates, if these could get near enough. At New Orleans, even the less numerous pieces of the sloops beat down opposition so long as they remained in front of Fort St.
He did not do quite as well every time, but in two hours there was not a gun in place on the barbette of the fort. The fort had become harmless so far as the use of its guns was concerned; but the channel of the Grand Pass was hardly a quarter of a mile in width, and even twenty soldiers with muskets could pick off the men on the deck of the Bronx.
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