In the Track of the Troops by Robert Michael Ballantyne (fantasy books to read TXT) 📖

rather a sneaking way of killing one's enemies?" asked my mother.

Young Firebrand laughed, and admitted that it was, but pleaded that everything was fair in love and war.

In actual warfare the circuit-closers are placed just over the mines which they are designed to explode, but for safety on this occasion they were placed at a safe distance from their respective mines. A steam-launch was used to bump them, and a prodigious upheaval of water on each explosion showed clearly enough what would have been the fate of an iron-clad if she had been over the mine.

"Oh, shade of Nelson!" I could not help exclaiming, "how shocked you must be if you are permitted to witness such methods of conducting war."

"Ah, yes!" sighed Firebrand; "the bubble reputation, you see, is being transferred from the cannon's mouth to the torpedo."

I made no reply, for my mind reverted to my laboratory in Devonshire, where lay the working-model of the terrible weapon I had spent so much time in perfecting. It seemed strange to me now, that, in the eager pursuit of a scientific object, I had scarcely ever, if at all, reflected on the dire results that the use of my torpedo involved, and I felt as if I were really guilty of the intent to murder. Just before leaving home I had charged my model, which was quite a large one, capable of holding about 50 pounds of dynamite, in the hope that I might prevail on the First Lord of the Admiralty and some of his colleagues to come down and see it actually fired. I now resolved to throw the dynamite into the sea, break up my model, and have done with explosives for ever.

While my mind was running on this, I was startled by an explosion close alongside. On turning towards the side of the ship, I found that it was caused by the rending of a huge iron chain, the links of which were more than one and a quarter inch in thickness. This powerful cable, which could have held an iron-clad, was snapped in twain like a piece of thread by the explosion _against_ it of only two and a half pounds of gun-cotton.

"Very well done," I said to Firebrand, "but I think that a much smaller quantity of dynamite would have done it as effectively."

"Now, Mrs Childers," said the young lieutenant, "the last experiment is about to be made, and I think it will interest you even more than the others. See, they are about to send off the electrical steam-pinnace."

As he spoke, a boat was being prepared alongside the ship.

"Why!" exclaimed my mother, almost speechless with surprise, "they have forgotten to send its crew in it."

"No, madam," said Firebrand, with one of his blandest smiles, "they have not forgotten her crew, but there are services so dangerous, that although the courage of the British sailor will of course enable him to face _anything_, it has been thought advisable not to put it to too severe a test, hence this automatic boat has been invented. It is steered, and all its other operations are performed, by means of electricity, applied not on board the boat but on board of the _Nettle_."

This was indeed the case. The electric pinnace went off as he spoke, her steam-engines, steering-gear, and all the other apparatus being regulated by electric wires, which were "paid out" from the ship as the boat proceeded on her mission of supposed extreme danger. Right under the withering fire of the imaginary enemy's batteries she went, and having scorned the rain of small shot that swept over her like hail, and escaped the plunging heavy shot that fell on every side, she dropped a mine over her stern, exploded it by means of a slow fuse, turned round and steamed back in triumph, amid the cheers of the spectators.

This last was really a marvellous sight, and the little boat seemed indeed to deserve the encomiums of Firebrand, who said, that, "If cool, calm pluck, in the face of appalling danger, merited anything, that heroic little steam-pinnace ought to receive the Victoria Cross."

I was still meditating on this subject, and listening to the animated comments going on around me, when I myself received a shock, compared to which all the explosions I had that day witnessed were as nothing.

It suddenly recurred to my memory that I had left a compound in my laboratory at home in a state of chemical preparation, which required watching to prevent its catching fire at a certain part of the process. I had been called away from that compound suddenly by Nicholas, just before we left for London, and I had been so taken up with what he had to tell me, that I had totally forgotten it. The mere burning of this compound would, in itself, have been nothing, for my laboratory was an old out-house, quite unconnected with the dwelling; but in the laboratory also lay my torpedo! The worst of it was that I had inserted a detonator and affixed a fuse, feeling quite secure in doing so, because I invariably locked the door and carried the key in my pocket.

My face must have turned very pale, for Nicholas, who came up at the moment, looked at me with anxious surprise, and asked if I were ill.

"No," said I, hurriedly; "no, not ill--but--yes--it is a slow process at best, and not always certain--sometimes takes a day or two to culminate. The fusion may not have been quite completed, or it may have failed altogether. Too late, I fear, too late, but I cannot rest till I know. Tell my mother I'm off home--only business--don't alarm her."

Regardless of the amazed looks of those who stood near me, I broke from the grasp of Nicholas, leaped into one of the boats alongside, seized the oars, and rowed ashore in mad haste.

Fortune favoured me. The train had not left, though it was just in motion. I had no time to take a ticket, but leaping upon the moving footboard, I wrenched open a carriage-door and sprang in.

It was an express. We went at full sixty miles an hour, yet I felt as if we moved like a snail. No words can adequately explain the state of my mind and body--the almost uncontrollable desire I felt to spring out of the train and run on ahead. But I was forced to sit still and think. I thought of the nearness of the laboratory to our kitchen windows, of the tremendous energy of the explosive with which the model-torpedo was charged, of the mass of combustibles of all kinds by which it was surrounded, of the thousand and one possibilities of the case, and of my own inexcusable madness in not being more careful.

At last the train pulled up at the town from which our residence is about two miles distant. It was now evening; but it was summer, and the days were long. Hiring a horse at the nearest hotel, I set off at a break-neck gallop.

The avenue-gate was open. I dashed in. The laboratory was not visible from that point, being at the back of the house. At the front door I pulled up, sprang to the ground, let the horse go, and ran forward.

I was met by Lancey coming round the corner. I saw at once that all was over! His face and hands had been scorched, and his hair singed! I gasped for breath.

"No one killed?" I asked.

"No, sir, nobody killed, but most of us 'orribly scared, sir."

"Nobody hurt, Lancey?" I asked again, leaning against the side of the house, and wiping my forehead.

"No, sir, nor 'urt," continued my faithful groom, hastening to relieve my mind; "you've no need to alarm yourself, sir, for we're all alive and 'earty, though I must say it's about the wust buster, sir, that you've yet turned out of 'ands. It sent in the kitchen winders as if they'd bin made of tissue paper, sir, an' cook she went into highstericks in the coal-bunker, Margaret she swounded in the scullery, and Mary went into fits in the wash'us. But they're all right again, sir,--only raither skeery ever since. We 'ad some trouble in puttin' it out, for the cumbustibles didn't seem to care much for water. We got it under at last, early this morning."

"This morning?"

"Yes, sir. It blow'd up about two hours arter you left for London, an' we've bin at it ever since. We _was_ so glad your mother was away, sir, for it _did_ make an uncommon crack. I was just sayin' to cook, not 'alf an hour since, the master would have enjoyed that, he would; it was _such_ a crusher."

"Any of--of--the torpedo left, Lancey?" I asked, with some hesitation.

"The torpedo, sir. Bless your 'art, it went up to the 'eavens like a sky-rocket, an' blowed the out-'ouse about to that extent that you couldn't find a bit big enough to pick your teeth with."

On hearing this I roused myself, and hastened to the scene of devastation.

One glance sufficed. The spot on which my laboratory had stood was a blackened heap of rubbish!

"Now, mother," said I next day, after relieving her mind by a full and rapid account of what had happened, "there is nothing that I know of to detain me at home. I will therefore see to having the yacht got ready, and we shall all go to sea without delay."


CHAPTER FIVE.


TERRIBLE TORPEDO TALES, FOLLOWED BY OVERTURNED PLANS.

Change of scene has almost always an invigorating effect on the mind. Whatever be the nature of your mind, variety, rest assured, will improve its condition.

So we thought, my mother and I, Nicholas and Bella, as we lay, one beautiful morning, becalmed in the English Channel.

The yacht turned out to be a most charming vessel. Schooner-rigged, with two cabins, one of which formed our _salon_ during the day, and the gentlemen's bed-room by night, the other being set apart entirely for the ladies. It was quite full. My mother and Bella filled it. Another female would have caused it to overflow.

Contrary to all expectation, my mother turned out a capital sailor; better even than Bella, on whom she attended during the first part of the voyage when the latter was ill.

"D'you think we shall have a good passage across the far-famed Bay of Biscay?" asked Nicholas, as he sat on the cabin skylight, smoking a mild cigar. Talking of that, smoking was the only thing in which I could not join my future brother-in-law. I know not how it is, but so it is that I cannot smoke. I have often tried to, but it invariably makes me sick, for which, perhaps, I ought to be thankful.

"It is to be hoped we shall," I replied to his question; "but I am not a judge of weather. What think you, Mr Whitlaw?" I said, addressing my skipper.

"I hope we shall, sir," replied the skipper, with a deferential touch of his cap, and a glance round the horizon; "but I don't feel sure."

Mr Whitlaw was an American, and a splendid specimen of the nation to which he belonged,--tall, lanky, broad-shouldered, gentlemanly, grave, self-possessed,