“From throwing stones,” said Gil, smiling. “If a stone should bound along the surface, why not a shot? That is the deadliest shot to my mind, Master Cobbe, that one could send at an enemy’s ship, and it was bravely fired.”
“Of course,” said the founder, proudly. “If my child knew that I had made the powder, and my hands had designed and fashioned the piece, she felt she would have naught to fear. And now for a shell.”
“Yes,” said Gil, thoughtfully; “now for a shell. You think your piece will fire one straight, Master Cobbe, as well as a mortar throws one in a half-circle through the air?”
“I do,” said the founder. “I lay my life on it.”
“Then,” said Gil, “I’d like to try my plan at the same time.”
“What may that be, my lad?”
“Well, sir, it is this,” said Gil. “You load your piece, then you prepare your well-charged shell, with a piece of slow match in its eye.”
“Yes.”
“And according to whether that is long or short, so is the time before it bursts the shell.”
“Exactly, my lad.”