“Not close to,” said Poole coldly. “Ah, well, I have, and you have no idea what it’s like. Big as it is, it’s all beautifully made. The breech opens and shuts, and parts of it move on hinges that are finished as neatly as the lock of a gun; and it is wonderful how easily everything moves. There are great screws which you turn as quietly as if everything were silk, and then there’s a great piece that they call the breech-block, which is lifted out, and then you can stand and look right through the great polished barrel as if it were a telescope, while all inside is grooves, screwed as you may say, so that the great bolt or shell when it is fired is made to spin round, which makes it go perfectly straight.”
“Well, yes, I think I knew a good deal of that,” said Poole, almost grudgingly.
“Well, you know,” continued Fitz excitedly, “perhaps you don’t know that when they are going to fire, the gun is unscrewed and the breech-block is lifted out. Then you can look through her; the shell or bolt and the cartridge are pushed in, the solid breech-block is dropped in behind them, and the breech screwed up all tightly once again.”
“Yes, I understand; and there’s no ramming in from the muzzle as with the old-fashioned guns.”
“Exactly,” said Fitz, growing more and more excited as he spoke. “And you know now what a tremendously dangerous weapon a great gun like that is.”
“Yes, my lad,” said Poole carelessly; “of course I do. But it’s no good.”
“What’s no good?” said Fitz sharply.
“You are as bad as Chips. If we got on board we couldn’t disable that gun, or get her to the side. She’d be far too heavy to move.”
“Yes,” said Fitz, with his eyes brightening, and he gripped his companion more tightly than ever. “But what’s the most important part of a gun like that?”
“Why, the charge, of course.”