THE PROGRESS OF THE ACTION The tremendous speed of the Bellevite had been telling with prodigious effect upon the distance between the two steamers, which was now reduced to not more than a mile and a half.

Captain Rombold could not help realizing by this time that the American-built vessel outsailed the English-built.

If the Trafalgar was good for twenty knots an hour, as represented, she had hardly attained that speed, as Captain Breaker judged by comparison with that of his own ship.
The Armstrong gun was still silent and it was pretty well settled that it had been disabled.

In this connection Christy recalled something he had read in Simpson about the "inability of the Armstrong gun to resist impact," and he sent Midshipman Walters to bring the volume from his state-room.

When it came he found the place, and read that three shots had been fired into one of them from a nine-pounder, either of which would have been fatal to the piece; and the section described the effect of each upon it.
He showed the book open at the place to Captain Breaker; but he had read it, and carried the whole matter in his mind.