The idea of deliberately inviting annihilation was a thing incomprehensible.

The retreat came to a halt; then everybody sat down again wondering, to await the upshot of it.

The Admiral himself was as surprised as any one.

He paused in the door, with his red handkerchief half raised to his sweating face, and contemplated the daring reptile in the corner.
"Certain of it?
Am I certain of it?
Do you think I've been lying about it?
What do you take me for?
Anybody that don't know that circumstance, don't know anything; a child ought to know it.

Read up your history! Read it up-----, and don't come asking a man if he's certain about a bit of ABC stuff that the very southern niggers know all about." Here the Admiral's fires began to wax hot, the atmosphere thickened, the coming earthquake rumbled, he began to thunder and lighten.