Its plates trembled with the vibration of an explosion.
"That's nothing!" yelled the captain, bending himself double over the bridge in order to see better the hull of his ship.

"A shell in the stern.

Steady, Toni!..." The mate, always grasping the wheel, kept turning his head from time to time to measure the distance separating them from the submarine.

Every time that he saw an aquatic column of spray, forced up by a projectile, he would repeat the same counsel.
"Lie down, Ulysses!...

They are going to fire at the bridge!" This was a recollection of his far-away youth when, as a contrabandist, he used to stretch himself flat on the deck of his bark, manipulating the wheel and the sail under the fire of the custom-house officers on watch.