we got on board?"

"Of these long 'uns?" he said, patting one affectionately on the breech
as he spoke. "Well, we've jist fifteen here a-port and fifteen
a-starboard, which makes thirty in all on this deck. A power o' metal,
I tell ye!"

"Oh, I know that," said I. "But I mean how many of the same sort."

"There ain't any more of the same sort, I tell ye, but what you sees,"
rejoined the gunner a bit crossly. "The guns as is on the main deck and
upper deck are all short thirty-two's; and, they're thirty too, o' them
on the main, and twenty-two on the upper deck. They all of 'em carries
the same weight of shot, though not such heavy guns as these, being only
forty-five hundredweight each."

"There, young Vernon, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!"
chimed in Larkyns, at this juncture, making a face behind the gunner's
back, which, had he seen it, might have altered the opinion that worthy
presently expressed of the speaker. "That's `the long and the short of
it,' as Mr Triggs has so eloquently explained!"

"Thank you, Mr Larkyns, for the compliment," said the gunner, taking
the remark as a tribute to his conversational ability. "I allers tries
to explain myself as well as I can. Is there anything more you'd like
to know, Master Vernon? I'm allers pleased to instruct any of you young
gentlemen when you asks civilly!"

"You spoke just now of a ten-pound charge," I answered. "I suppose you
mean of powder without the shot?"

"That's not _charged_," put in Larkyns, grinning. "The shot is given in
`free, gratis, for nothing,' as Paddy said."

"Yes, Master Vernon," replied the gunner, taking no notice this time of
Larkyns or his interpolation. "These here guns take a full charge of
ten pounds of powder for long range, and redooced charges of six and
eight pounds; whilst the charges of them on the main and upper deck are
either six or eight pounds, as the case might be, according to the
service required."

"It must take an awful lot of powder for all the eighty-four guns,
besides the shot and shell!"

"You can bet on that," replied Mr Triggs, moving towards the side and
looking through the port in the direction of the harbour. "We carries
about a hundred rounds of each charge for every gun; or, something like
ninety tons for our whole armament. That's what it takes."

"Ninety tons of gunpowder!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Do you mean
that we've got to take such a quantity as that on board?