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Once, however, he took careful aim at a white face which lay against the breech of a rifle leveled at him. He aimed for the white space between the eyes quite as coolly as though he were facing a target.
By the worst of ill-luck, a shell which must have been fired practically at random had hit the gun just below the port trunnion. The result of the explosion was very severe. Four of the seven men at the gun had been blown overboard, the breech worker was uninjured, though from the way he swayed about it was evident that he was dazed, and I expected to see him fall over the side at any moment.
He had only his shotgun, but the sun was near its setting and if he returned to the Mess to get his rifle which was taken to pieces and locked up in its case darkness would probably fall before he could overtake the panther, which was possibly moving on ahead of him. So he resolved not to turn back, but opened the breech of his gun and extracted the cartridges.
He handed it to Harrison with one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt. "What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech- caps." "They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of 'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please, and show your rations."
If I did not care about eating, though, I was highly interested in the preparation of the Blazer presently for action, her five-inch breech- loaders being loaded with Palliser shell and the hoppers of her machine- guns filled; while the crew with rifles in their hands and cutlasses by their side mustered at quarters.
These religious mendicants go almost naked, usually with nothing but the smallest possible breech clout around their loins, which the police require them to wear; they plaster their bodies with mud, ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and other substances into their hair to give it an uncouth appearance.
Do but look a little on the weather-beaten scratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay five pounds to a hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now. These same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as other folk. But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib in his breech like a rogue as he is.
George's subject is not the first in course, but it has taken the first place in my thoughts. I do assure you that I am not his puff. What I tell you of his reading is literally true; but it is not reading that expresses it, for I could have said as much if he had read nothing but the History of Cinder Breech and that kind of biography.
Then the captain of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a telescope. "Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet. And the whole barricade clapped their hands. A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action.
On a subsequent visit to Europe, while exploring the collection of fire-arms in the Tower of London and other repositories of weapons of war in England and on the continent, he found several guns having the chambered breech, but all were so constructed as to be of little practical value, being far more liable to explode prematurely and destroy the man who should use them than the objects at which they might be aimed.
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