What a combatant was this carronade!
Here was this mad creature to be arrested, this flash of lightning to be seized, this thunderbolt to be crushed. Boisberthelot said to Vieuville:—
"Do you believe in God, chevalier?"
"Yes and no, sometimes I do!" replied La Vieuville.
"In a tempest?"
"Yes, and in moments like these."
"Truly God alone can save us," said Boisberthelot.
All were silent, leaving the carronade to its horrible uproar.
The waves beating the ship from without answered the blows of the cannon within, very much like a couple of hammers striking in turn.
Suddenly in the midst of this inaccessible circus, where the escaped cannon was tossing from side to side, a man appeared, grasping an iron bar. It was the author of the catastrophe, the chief gunner, whose criminal negligence had caused the accident,—the captain of the gun. Having brought about the evil, his intention was to repair it. Holding a handspike in one hand, and in the other a tiller rope with the slip-noose in it, he had jumped through the hatchway to the deck below.