And 'midst the tears-brave tears-that one could trace Upon the pale but sweetly resolute face, I once again the mournful words could read, "I've tried to do my best,-I have, indeed.' And now I'm mostly done; my story's o'er; Boys flying kites haul in their white-wing'd birds: You can't do that way when you're flying words. "Careful with fire," is good advice we know; "Careful with words," is ten times doubly so. Thoughts unexpress'd may sometimes fall back dead, But God Himself can't kill them once they're said! (Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1881, 1898, by Harper and Brothers.) THE MONSTER CANNON BY VICTOR HUGO They heard a noise unlike anything usually heard. The cry and the crash came from the interior of the vessel. One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four pounder, had become detached. This, perhaps, is the most formidable of ocean events. Nothing more terrible can happen to a war vessel, at sea and under full sail. A cannon which breaks its moorings becomes abruptly some indescribable, supernatural beast. It is a machine which transforms itself into a monster. This mass runs on its wheels, like billiard-balls, inclines with the rolling, plunges with the pitching, goes, comes, stops, seems to meditate, resumes its course, shoots from one end of the ship to the other like an arrow, whirls, steals away, evades, prances, strikes, breaks, kills, exterminates. It is a ram which capriciously assails a wall. Add this-the ram is of iron, the wall is of wood. This furious bulk has the leaps of a panther, the weight of the elephant, the agility of the mouse, the pertinacity of the ax, the unexpectedness of the surge, the rapidity of lightning, the silence of the sepulcher. It weighs ten thousand pounds, and it rebounds like a child's ball. Its whirlings are suddenly cut at right angles. What is to be done? How shall an end be put to its movements? A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes, a wind goes down, a broken mast is replaced, a leak is stopped, a fire put out, but what shall be done with this enormous brute of bronze? How try to secure it? You can reason with a dog, paralyze a bull, fascinate a serpent, terrify a tiger, and soften the noble heart of a lion; no resource with such a monster as a loose cannon. You cannot kill it: it is dead, and at the same time it lives with a sinister life which comes from the Infinite. It is moved by the ship, which is moved by the sea, which is moved by the wind. This exterminator is a plaything. The horrible cannon struggles, advances, retreats, strikes to the right, strikes to the left, flees, passes, disconcerts expectation, grinds every obstacle to powder, and crushes men like flies. In a moment the whole of the crew were on the scene of the accident. A gunner had caused all the mischief by neglecting to secure the nut of the chain which composed the lashing, and by not properly blocking the four wheels, so that the play given to the sole and frame had torn it from the platform, and ended by breaking the breeching. As a heavy sea struck the port, the carronade, badly lashed, had slipped back, and, bursting its chain, had commenced flying hither and thither between decks. The carronade, hurled by the pitching, made havoc in the group of men, crushing four at the first blow; then receding and brought back by the rolling, it cut a fifth unfortunate man in two, and dashed against the larboard side a piece of the battery which it dismounted. Thence came the cry of distress which had been heard. All the men rushed toward the ladder. The battery was emptied in the twinkling of an eye. The captain and lieutenant, altho both intrepid men, had halted at the head of the ladder, and, dumb, pale, hesitating, looked down into the lower deck. Some one pushed them to one side with his elbow and descended. It was an old man, a passenger. Once at the foot of the ladder he stood still. Hither and thither along the lower deck came the canOne might have thought it the living chariot of the Apocalypse. non. The captain promptly regained his presence of mind, and caused to be thrown into the lower deck all that could allay and fetter the unbridled course of the cannon,mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, rolls of cordage, bags of equipments, and bales of counterfeit assignats, of which the corvette had a full cargo. But of what avail these rags? Nobody daring to go down and place them properly, in a few minutes they were lint. There was just sea enough to make the accident as complete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable; it might have thrown the cannon upside down, and, once the four wheels were in the air, it could have been mastered. As it was, the havoc increased. There were chafings and even fractures in the masts, which, jointed into the frame of the keel, go through the floors of vessels and are like great round pillars. Under the convulsive blows of the cannon, the foremast had cracked, the mainmast itself was cut. The battery was disjointed. Ten pieces out of the thirty were hors de combat; the breaches in the sides multiplied, and the corvette commenced to. take in water. He The old passenger who had gone down to the lower deck seemed a man of stone at the bottom of the ladder. cast a severe look on the devastation. He did not stir. It seemed impossible to take a step in the battery. They must perish, or cut short the disaster; something must be done, but what? What a combatant that carronade was! That frightful maniac must be stopped. The lightning must be averted. That thunderbolt must be conquered. "In the tempest?'' "Yes. And in moments like these." "In reality God only can rid us of this trouble." All were hushed, leaving the carronade to do its horrible work. Outside, the billows beating the vessel answered the blows of the cannon. It was like two hammers alternating. All of a sudden, in that kind of unapproachable circuit wherein the escaped cannon bounded, a man appeared, with an iron bar in his hand. It was the author of the catastrophe, the chief gunner, guilty of negligence and the cause of the accident, the master of the carronade. Having done the evil, he wished to repair it. He had grasped a handspike in one hand, some guntackle with a slip-knot in the other, and jumped upon the lower deck. Then a wild exploit commenced, a Titanic spectacle: the strife of the gun against the gunner, the combat of matter against mind, the duel of the lifeless and the living. The man had posted himself in a corner, and with his bar and rope in his two fists, leaning against one of the riders, standing firmly on his legs which seemed like two pillars of steel, livid, calm, tragic, as tho rooted to the floor, he waited. He was waiting for the cannon to pass near him. The gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that it must know him. He had lived for some time with it. How many times he had thrust his hand into its jaws! It was his tamed monster. He commenced talking to it as he would to his dog. How avoid its crushing He seemed to wish that it would turn in his direction, but should it do so, he would be lost. weight? That was the question. with eyes of terror. All gazed on the scene Not a breast breathed freely, except perhaps that of the old man who was alone below with the two combatants— an impassive second. |