“Ah, it’s the light that does it,” observed the lieutenant, chaffing him. “However, if you will go rolling in the coal-bunkers and making love to the engineer’s oil-cans, you must take the consequences!”
“I didn’t,” replied Bob indignantly. “You don’t think I tumbled down there on purpose, do you?”
“Perhaps not,” said the other, smiling. “But, pray remember, you were told to keep away from the gun; and, if you had obeyed orders, you wouldn’t have got into any mischief.”
“Well, let us be thankful it is no worse,” observed the Captain cheerily. “I hope you are not hurt, Bob, by your roll dawn the hatchway?”
“No, Captain,” he answered, brightening up again after the snub of the lieutenant anent his disobedience, “I fell on the coal-sacks quite softly and haven’t got a scratch.”
“That’s all right then,” echoed Captain Dresser in his joking way; adding to the young officer on his other side, “I wonder if all the ‘cocked hats’ have done examining the gun, and whether there’s a chance now for an old retired fogey like myself having a look at the damage?”
“I should think so, sir,” replied the young officer. “The Admiral, I see, has gone away, and the fellows also from the Ordnance department; so, you’d better come and have a glance round while the coast is clear.”
“I will,” was the response of the old sailor, as, in company with the lieutenant and Bob, he made his way through one of the watertight doors in the forward bulkhead on to the fo’c’s’le; the trio then grouping themselves round the broken breech of the exploded weapon, all that was left now of the whilom big forty-three ton gun!
“Ah! I can see how it happened,” said the old sailor, after a cursory inspection of the fractured portion. “The gun was strong enough at the breech, but went at the muzzle. It has given way, of course, at its weakest point.”
“Yes,” agreed the young lieutenant. “It has parted just here, where the last protecting coil of steel has been shrunk on; the tube of the gun has burst at this unprotected portion of it, right in front of the chase.”