She knew the laws of mortar-practice in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those of projectiles.
There was something about her engines which it were vain to attempt to describe.

Their lightest glance was a thing not to be trifled with, and their gaze a thing hardly to be withstood.

Sustained and without hurt defied, it could hardly be by man of woman born.

They were large, but no fool would be taken with mere size.

They were as dark as ever eyes of woman, but our older poets delighted in eyes as gray as glass: certainly not in their darkness lay their peculiar witchery.