ave the needful
touch to the galvanic battery, which, like the most faithful of
servants, _instantly_ sent a spark to fire the torpedo.

The result was tremendous. A column of seething mud and water, twenty
feet in diameter, shot full thirty feet into the air, overwhelming the
launch in such a shower that many of the unprofessional spectators
imagined she was lost. Thus an imaginary ironclad was sent, with a
tremendous hole in her, to the bottom of the sea.

That this is no _imaginary_ result will be seen in the sequel of our
tale.

"Why, the shock has made the _Nettle_ herself tremble!" I exclaimed, in
surprise.

"Oh, the poor boat!" cried my mother.

"No fear of the boat," said young Firebrand, "and as to the _Nettle_--
why, my good fellow, I have felt our greatest ironclad, the mighty
_Thunderer_, of which I have the honour to be an officer, quiver
slightly from the explosion of a mere five-pounds torpedo discharged
close alongside. Few people have an adequate conception of the power of
explosives, and still fewer, I believe, understand the nature of the
powers by which they are at all times surrounded. That 100-pounds
torpedo, for instance, which has only caused us to quiver, would have
blown a hole in our most powerful ship if fired in _contact_ with it,
and yet the _cushion of water_ between it and the tiny launch that fired
it is so tough as to be quite a sufficient protection to the boat, as
you see."

We did indeed "see," for the waspish little boat emerged from the deluge
she had raised and, steaming swiftly on, turned round and retraced her
track. On reaching about the same position as to the _Nettle_, she
repeated the experiment with her second torpedo.

"Splendid!" exclaimed young Naranovitsch, whose military ardour was
aroused.

"It means, does it not," said Bella, "a splendid ship destroyed, and
some hundreds of lives lost?"

"Well--yes--" said Nicholas, hesitatingly; "but of course it does not
always follow, you know, that so _many_ lives--"

He paused, and smiled with a perplexed look. Bella smiled dubiously,
and shook her head, for it did not appear to either of them that the
exact number of lives lost had much to do with the question. A sudden
movement of the visitors to the other side of the ship stopped the
conversation.

They were now preparing to show the effect of a gun-cotton hand-grenade;
in other words, a species of bomb-shell, meant to be thrown by the hand
into an ene