Bob Strong's Holidays Part 30

"By the way," said the Captain to the latter, on taking his leave in the evening after escorting them back to "the Moorings," "you mustn't forget the trial of the _Archimedes_ to-morrow, my boy. Captain Sponson told me the other day at the Club that she'd go out of harbour at nine o'clock sharp in the morning!"

"Oh, I'll remember," replied Bob. "Where will she start from, Captain?"

"Why, from Coaling Point, at the further end of the Dockyard; so we'll have to be under weigh half-an-hour earlier," cried the old sailor from the doorstep. "You had better call at my place, as it is on the way.

Mind you're not later than 8:30 sharp, or she'll be off without you!"

"I'll be there in time, never fear," was Bob's response as the Captain bade him "Good-night!" and stumped off homeward. "I'll be in time!"

Poor Rover!

He was doomed to another day of desertion; for, much to his surprise, his young master, instead of taking him down to the sea as usual in the morning, started off alone, and without his towels, too, which puzzled Rover more than anything else.

Dogs have their feelings, similarly to other people; and so, his brown eyes filled with tears as he watched Bob rushing out of the house, in a terrible hurry lest he might keep the Captain waiting, or even, indeed, be too late altogether--with never a word for him save a peremptory, "Lie down, Rover; I can't take you with me; lie down, sir!"

It was really too bad of Bob!

In consequence of this unhandsome treatment, it may be likewise added, Rover's tail, which he generally carried in a jaunty fashion, with the trifle of a twist to one side, as became a dog of his degree and one moving in the best canine society, now drooped down between his legs--of a verity it almost touched the ground!

This made the deserted animal look such a picture of misery that, on Nell's drawing her aunt's attention to him, the good lady of the house not only spoke sympathising words unto him, to which the sad dog replied by ever so feeble a wag of his drooping tail; but Mrs Gilmour also, sanctioned, nay, even directed, his being entertained with a basin of hot bread-and-milk served up on the best dining-room carpet, an event unparalleled in the annals of "the Moorings!"

Bob meanwhile, with never a thought of Rover, was proceeding across the Dockyard with the Captain, who hobbled painfully over the k.n.o.bbly paving-stones with which that national inst.i.tution is ornamented, anathematising at every step he took the rulers of the "Queen's Navee,"

who put him thus to unnecessary pain.

"I can't think how, in a Christian land, people's poor feet should be so mercilessly disregarded!" he exclaimed, on giving his favourite corn an extra pinch between two projecting boulders--"I'd like to make 'my Lords' of the Admiralty do the goose-step regularly here for four hours a day; and then, perhaps, there'd be a chance of a poor creature being enabled to walk about the place in comfort!"

Notwithstanding the instruments of torture in the shape of paving-stones of which the Captain complained, and justly, he and Bob just managed to reach the _Archimedes_ before she cast-off from the jetty alongside of which she had been coaling, the two only having time to jump on board as the gangway connecting her with the sh.o.r.e was withdrawn. Another moment and they would have been too late; for "time and tide," and ships going out on trial, wait for no man, or boy either.

However, there they were, "better late than never," Bob thought, and he thought further, too, as he gazed round the deck of the ironclad, which was somewhat begrimed with coal-dust, and about the ugliest and most mis-shapen monster imaginable, "Can I really be on board a ship?"

He was, though; and, presently, the sound of the escape steam, that had previously been roaring up through the rattling funnels, ceased; while the fan-blades of the screw-propeller began to revolve, surging up the water of the open dock in which the vessel lay into a ma.s.s of foam, and creating, so to speak, a sort of "tempest in a teapot."

Then, a couple of attendant tugs sent their tow-ropes aboard, so as to check and guide the unwieldy leviathan in her progress through the deeper channels of the harbour which ships of heavy draught have to take to get out to sea; and "going easy," little by little, with an occasional stop, as some impertinent craft or other got into the fairway, they finally reached Spithead.

"What is that funny red vessel coming down to us for?" inquired Bob, pointing out a dandy-rigged yawl that just then rounded-up under the stern of the _Archimedes_, laying-to a little way off. "She's coming alongside, I think."

"That's the powder-hoy," replied the Captain. "She's brought the ammunition for our big guns here."

"And why is she painted red?" asked Bob again--"eh?"

"Just for the same reason that danger-signals on railways and warning flags are always red," said the other. "I suppose because the colour is more glaring and likely to be taken notice of; and no doubt, too, that's why our soldiers are clothed in scarlet so that they can be all the more readily potted by the enemy?"

"You are pretty right there, Captain Dresser!" said, laughingly, a young naval officer standing near, who kindly took all further trouble off the Captain's hands in the way of answering Bob's questions and showing him round the ship, the machinery of which especially charmed him, being so much more imposing and complicated than that of the poor _Bembridge Belle_, which had interested him only yesterday, so to speak, though now washed to pieces by the relentless sea!

The movements of the eccentric aroused Bob's chief wonder, the two piston-rods connected with it and guiding the motion appearing in their working like the crooked limbs of a bandy-legged giant "jumping up and down," as he expressed it, "in a hoppety-kickety dance."

Bob was called up from the engine-room by an extraordinary sound that proceeded apparently from the deck above.

This, as he ascended, grew louder and louder; until it became to him really awesome.

"What is that?" he asked the young lieutenant, who had accompanied him below and now followed him up, keeping close to his side. "Has anything happened, sir?"

"No, nothing's happened," replied the young officer, who was a bit of a wag. "That is our steam siren."

"What is that, sir?" said Bob again--"I don't understand you."

"It's the siren," explained the other, "a thing like the steam-whistle, for signalling to pa.s.sing ships."

"It makes an awful row," cried Bob. "Don't you think so, sir?"

"It does," said the lieutenant laughing. "A great row!"

"Why do they call it a siren, though?" inquired the insatiable Bob.

"The 'sirens' I've read of in my lessons at school used to be mermaids that sang so sweetly and made such beautiful music, as they played on their harps or lyres, that they lured poor mariners to destruction!"

"But doesn't our siren make beautiful music?" asked the lieutenant in a joking way. "It is loud, it is true; but don't you think it sweet?"

"No," answered Bob, most emphatically. "It isn't! It is more like a thousand wild bulls all with the toothache and roaring with pain!"

"That's not a bad description," said the other, laughing heartily again.

"Hullo, though, they are going to fire now! Don't you see they've just run up a red flag on that spar we have forward as an apology for a mast?"

"I see," replied Bob, concentrating his attention on the preparations being made around for testing the machine-guns and larger weapons with which the vessel was armed, long cylindrical shot, ribbed with bra.s.s bands, being piled by the side of the various batteries, and nicely-made cases of cartridges placed ready for the hoppers of the Nordenfeldts and Gatlings. "How awfully jolly!"

The _Archimedes_, after taking her ammunition on board, had steamed out seaward so as to get a good offing where she might fire her guns without the risk of hitting any pa.s.sing craft; and, by the time Bob had come on deck again from inspecting the machinery, she was well beyond the Nab light and far out into the waters of the Channel.

On the order being presently given to fire, the machine-guns went popping away, to test how many shots they can fire off in a minute--the report of some of them sounding like an asthmatic old gentleman with a very bad cough.

"What a funny noise!" cried Bob--"Rover barks just the same when he's asleep and dreaming!"

"Indeed!" said the young lieutenant, more intent, however, on watching a party of blue-jackets getting ready a big gun for firing in the bows than paying much attention to Bob. "Look out there, youngster!"

"What are they going to do, eh?" asked Bob--"all those sailors there!"

"Why, fire one of our forty-three ton guns; so you'd better look out for squalls. Have you got any cotton-wool about you?"

"No," answered Bob. "What for?"

"To put in your ears, so as to deaden the noise of the report," said the lieutenant. "I've got some, though, so it doesn't matter. 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!"