dred and
ten pounds of Dupont smokeless powder and a projectile weighing five
hundred and seventy-five pounds," Captain Heath was explaining, as they
stopped in front of the big seacoast defender.

"Say, they're going to fire it!" Bink gasped.

"Of course, you idiot! Did you think it was going to fire them?"

"Better stand on your tiptoes and stick cotton into your ears," Browning
warned, as the big gun was quickly made ready for hurling its terrible
projectile.

"Wh-what if the dinged old thing should bub-bub-burst?" Gamp anxiously
asked.

"We should have to

"'Ask of the winds, that far around!
With fragments strewed the sea!'"

was Danny's comforting answer.

Dismal and Rattleton retreated a step or two, as did Elsie Bellwood. But
Inza stood her ground as bravely as Merriwell himself.

Then, before more could be said, the big cannon boomed forth its volume
of deafening sound, making the very walls shake. Danny tumbled backward,
then picked himself up and felt over his person very carefully.

"Am I all here?" he anxiously queried.

All watched the direction in which the huge shot had been fired, but it
fell miles away. Merriwell and a few others, provided with strong
glasses, saw it drop into the sea. The captain was talking again.

"The instruments record an initial velocity of one thousand feet per
second, with a pressure of twenty-four thousand pounds."

"I've been under greater pressure than that," Danny chirped.

"When you were shot?" Bink asked. "All guns, big and little, are under
pressure when they are shot."

"I'll put your throat under pressure when we get away from here!" Bink
threatened.

"This is a twelve-inch rifle, loaded with one hundred and thirty pounds
of powder and a projectile of the same weight as the first."

The party had moved to a new point, and Captain Heath was again talking.
Other guns were fired, after the discharge of this one; the last shot
being sent from a twelve-inch rifle with a charge of four hundred and
seventy-five pounds of Dupont brown prismatic powder and a projectile
weighing one thousand pounds.

The roar, the jar, and the vibration were like that of a miniature
earthquake. Captain Heath's calm voice was heard again, after a short
silence.

"The velocity was two thousand and eighty-eight feet per second, and the
pressure four thousand pounds. This pressure is ten thousand pounds too
high. The powder is too quick, and will be condemned."

Af