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Updated: May 3, 2025
"A fellow has now no chance of promotion unless he jumps into the muzzle of a gun and crawls out of the touch-hole." He who, a hundred years ago, more or less, pronounced the above words in the uneasiness of his heart, thirsting for professional distinction, was a young naval officer.
Grantham," said the boatswain, who had flown to examine the touch-hole, "there is a great piece of steel in it, and for all the world like a woman's bodkin, or some such sort of thing." "Ah! it all comes o' that wench that was here on deck last night," muttered the helmsman, who had succeeded Sambo on duty the preceding night.
He picked out the touch-hole, however, for the negro, telling him that he must put a match into the pan when he wanted to fire it. He resolved, however, to stand clear of the negro when he fired it; for he had little doubt that when he did so the barrel would burst, and do much more damage to the defenders of the fort than to the assailants.
Maneuvering the well-balanced breech with both hands, the tall Yankee trained his cannon upon the pirate sloop; allowed for distance, raising the muzzle an inch or more; nosed the wind and glanced at the foremast pennons; then swung his piece a fraction of an inch to windward. At last with a shout of "'Ware fire!" he sprang back and laid his match to the touch-hole.
A hand crank to make the fourth highest-power foghorn on the coast blow! I lost my patience. 'No ma'am, says I, 'a crank ain't necessary. I just put my mouth to the touch-hole, I says, 'and breathe natural and she chirrups. She believed it, too. I cal'late I'll catch thunder from Cap'n Jeth if he finds out what I told her, but I can't help it; there's limits, by Godfreys domino, limits!"
There was a regular contention between Mr Root, my musket, and myself; and at last, by giving my sergeant a shilling, I conquered. Every day that our muskets were examined on parade, mine would be found with a touch-hole drilled in it; as certainly as it was found, so certainly was I hoisted.
He and his fellow-conspirators had sawn it off near to the ground, and close to the root they had drilled a touch-hole. This huge piece of ordnance they had loaded with a heavy charge of the ship's gunpowder. Otto now stood ready with a piece of slow-match at the touch-hole, and another piece, lighted, in hand.
"Quick, here, give us a picker." A picker was handed to him by one, who also held the powder horn for priming. "Its no use," he pursued, throwing away the wire, and springing to the deck. "She's a spike in the touch-hole, and the devil himself wouldn't get it out now." "A spike! what mean you?" eagerly demanded Gerald. "It's too true, Mr.
In 1812, when the French, after despoiling it of whatever they could lay their hands upon, attempted, in the rage of disappointment, to blow up the walls, the powder, as the Russians confidently assert, was possessed by the devil of water, and refused to explode; and when they planted a heavily-loaded cannon before the Holy Gate, and built a fire on top of the touch-hole to make it go off, it went off at the breech, and blew a number of Frenchmen into the infernal regions, after which the remainder of them thought it best to let it alone.
The cannon was put on the floor, aiming towards an empty part of the room, three grains of powder were thrust into the touch-hole and a match was put to it. A magnificent explosion followed. Mamma was startled, but at once laughed with delight. The boys gazed in speechless triumph. But the captain, looking at Ilusha, was more enchanted than any of them.
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