astern. Material injury might not have resulted from
the fall of this great mass of metal upon the crab, but
it was considered prudent not to take useless risks.

The officers of the Adamant were greatly
surprised and chagrined by the fall of their gun, with
which they had expected ultimately to pound in the roof
of the crab. No damage had been done to the vessel
except the removal of a portion of the boom, with some
of the chains and blocks attached, and no one on board
the British ship imagined for a moment that this injury
had been occasioned by the distant repeller. It was
supposed that the constant firing of the cannon had
cracked the boom, and that it had suddenly snapped.

Even if there had been on board the Adamant the
means for rigging up another arrangement of the kind
for perpendicular artillery practice, it would have
required a long time to get it into working
order, and the director of Repeller No. 7 hoped that
now the British captain would see the uselessness of
continued resistance.

But the British captain saw nothing of the kind,
and shot after shot from his guns were hurled high into
the air, in hopes that the great curves described would
bring some of them down on the deck of the repeller.
If this beastly store-ship, which could stand fire but
never returned it, could be sunk, the Adamant's
captain would be happy. With the exception of the loss