Here's a bit to stick in your ears--you'd better take my advice, it'll save your tympanum!" Bob did not know what he meant; but he put the cotton-wool in his ears, as desired, on seeing Captain Dresser and some other officers standing near doing the same, and that the lieutenant was not "taking a rise out of him," as at first he was inclined to think.
The enormous gun, carrying a charge of two hundred and eighty pounds of powder, with a shot weighing nearly a quarter of a ton, was now loaded; when the officer directing the operation ordered all persons to move away from the vicinity of the weapon, which was about to be fired for the first time--at least on board the _Archimedes_.
Everybody retreated behind the armoured screen bulkhead that formed a sort of "shelter trench" across the deck; for, if an accident should happen in the way of an unexpected explosion, refuge might be had there from any flying fragments.
Everybody, as has been said, at once, on the order being given, sought this retreat--everybody, that is, but Bob, who, instead of stepping back like the others, stepped forwards.
At the same moment the signal was given, "Fire!" A terrific report followed, as if the ship and all its contents were blown up, there being none of the reverberating sound, like that usually heard when heavy guns are fired, as of an express train rushing at speed through the air; but a dull, hollow, sullen, sharp roar, succeeded by the heavy swish of some body, or something, falling into the water alongside, while a thick smoke hung over the deck like a pall.
"By Jingo!" exclaimed the Captain, "the gun has burst!".