Every month I would ram a whole
raft of them into the Columbiad, with a charge under them strong enough
to blow them all to the--But--Hey!--what in creation's that?"
[Illustration: FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH.]
Whilst the officer was speaking, his companions had suddenly caught a
sound in the air which reminded them immediately of the whistling scream
of a Lancaster shell. At first they thought the steam was escaping
somewhere, but, looking upwards, they saw that the strange noise
proceeded from a ball of dazzling brightness, directly over their heads,
and evidently falling towards them with tremendous velocity. Too
frightened to say a word, they could only see that in its light the
whole ship blazed like fireworks, and the whole sea glittered like a
silver lake. Quicker than tongue can utter, or mind can conceive, it
flashed before their eyes for a second, an enormous bolide set on fire
by friction with the atmosphere, and gleaming in its white heat like a
stream of molten iron gushing straight from the furnace. For a second
only did they catch its flash before their eyes; then striking the
bowsprit of the vessel, which it shivered into a thousand pieces, it
vanished in the sea in an instant with a hiss, a scream, and a roar, all
equally indescribable.
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