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When he invented the Buckle, and took out his patent, he and his wife both felt that to bestow their name on it was like naming a battle-ship or a peak of the Andes. Mrs. Grew had never learned to know better; but Mr. Grew had discovered his error before Ronald was out of school. He read it first in a black eye of his boy's.
Nelson had not returned, but a strong fleet remained, under Sir Robert Calder, which was handled in such fashion as to drive the hostile ships back to the harbor of Cadiz. Such was the state of affairs when Nelson again reached England. Full of the spirit of battle, he hoisted his flag on the battle-ship Victory, and set sail in search of his foes.
Such, in outward seeming, then was the as yet raw material, out of which have been evolved the heroic soldiery who have recently astonished the world by the practical development they have given to modern military ideas; then as unlike the troops which now are, except in courage, as the ancient Japanese war-junk is to the present battle-ship.
Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an Austrian battle-ship! That's what we get for being a free republic that can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political offense." Armitage was not listening.
Now and then a little torpedo-boat would cut like a knife-blade through the water on messenger service; or a gunboat would drop lightly down the hill of the sea, along the top of which it patrolled so vigilantly; and ever on the horizon hung a battle-ship that looked like a great gray floating cathedral.
Turquoise patches of sky and big clouds, leafy parapets, ships passing to the sea; and in mid-stream an anchored island of steel painted white and buff, bristling with long thin guns, the flower-like flag rippling astern; another battle-ship farther north; another, another; and farther still the white tomb unlovely mansion of the dead on outpost duty above the river, guarding with the warning of its dead glories the unlovely mansions of the living ranged along the most noble terrace in the world.
The puzzle that was troubling every naval authority as well as every statesman in the civilized world, at the outbreak of the war between the United States and Spain, was what would be the results of a conflict at sea between the floating fortresses which now serve as battle-ships. Since navies reached their modern form there had been no war in which the test of the battle-ship was complete.
After this, and no man could have said how many seconds passed while the confusing, bewildering blackness lay heavy over that scene of death and destruction, long tongues of flame burst up from the torn and splintered decks of the doomed battle-ship, a signal of distress, as well as a beacon for those who would succour the dying.
Japan was preparing to despatch a second army to Manchuria, and pending its shipment the chief duty to be discharged devolved upon the fleet, namely, the further crippling of the Port Arthur squadron in order to secure the transports against its enterprises. The object was promoted on the 13th of April by the loss of the Russian battle-ship Petropavlovsk.
But, for the first time in the history of his administration, that solemn ceremony was rudely halted. An excited aide, trembling at his own temerity, burst upon the president's solitary state. In the anteroom, he announced, an officer from the battle-ship LOUISIANA demanded instant audience. For a moment, transfixed in amazement, anger, and alarm President Ham remained seated.
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