"What speed can she go?"
No; he did not know.
"As fast as a torpedo-boat?"
He drew in his breath with a whistling noise, and tried to show by gestures her extreme speed.
"What size is she?"
He did not know, nor what guns she carried. He was taken on deck to look at the Strong Arm, lying quietly half a mile away, and then brought down again.
No; she was not so large, but how large he could not say.
As to the forts, all that could be got out of him was that there was one on each side of the entrance, and, as far as he knew, none anywhere else.
He did not even know how many guns they had.
"Have they done much practice firing from them?"