Herc was amazed when he took his place on the gun-pointer's little steel platform, to find that by handling a lever close to his right hand he could point the ponderous gun, weighing fifty-four tons, up or down as easily as he used to sight his little "twenty-two" when he went shooting "chucks" at home.
"That great gun is balanced as delicately as a microscope," explained the lieutenant.
"How do you get it in lateral range?" inquired Herc.
For reply, the lieutenant indicated another lever.
Herc touched it.
Instantly the great turret itself began to quake, and then, with a soft rattling of cogs, commenced slowly to revolve.
"Reverse it!" shouted the lieutenant.
Herc pulled the lever in the other direction.
As obediently as if it had understanding, the tons of triple-riveted steel which composed the shelter for the heaviest guns in the navy began to turn in the opposite direction.
"Electricity," laughed the officer. "Electricity is the life-blood of the modern battleship. A vessel like this has a more complicated system of circulation than the human body. We eat by electricity, fire the guns by it, read by it, cook by it, coal by it, and——"