The Japanese officer declared that when a volunteer crew of half a dozen men was called for to navigate her, ten times the required number offered themselves, although they well knew that they were going to certain death. The flotilla was steaming slowly through the darkness one night, not far from Port Arthur, when there suddenly loomed up ahead the huge bulk of a Russian warship. At once the dynamite-laden craft threw herself directly in front of the oncoming leviathan. Without the pause of an instant, the doomed Japanese crew sprung the huge mine, when a vast cone of flame shot up, reddening the night, carrying with it high into the air, decks, superstructure and guns of the warship. The warship's magazines, fired simultaneously by the dynamite blast, aided the complete demolition. The returning torrent of guns and wreckage plunged into the sea. All was over, and it was dark again. A WILD PROJECTILE In spite of every precaution at Government proving grounds, big projectiles do sometimes glance out of the butts or heaps of earth into which they are fired, or from the face of armorplates against which they are directed, and finally land in most unexpected quarters. One day, while a thirteen-inch gun was being tested at Indian Head, a projectile glanced out of the butt, mounted high into the air, and then came down through the roof of a building, where there were engaged a number of officers and book-keepers. The projectile passed down through the floor, close to the desk of one of the officers, and buried itself in the earth. As the projectile contained no explosive charge, the damage was not great, but the scare that was thrown into the occupants of that room was of considerable magnitude. THE BOMB AND THE TRAIN One of the most anxious moments that I ever experienced was during some experiments made by me at Maxim in throwing aerial torpedoes from a four-inch cannon. These torpedoes were about four feet in length, charged with a very powerful high explosive, and armed with a detonating fuze. We had successfully fired several of them into a sand-butt where they exploded with great violence. There were six of them: five had been fired and the sixth was loaded into the gun, ready to be discharged, when a passenger train on the Jersey Central Railroad hove in sight, and was passing us about a thousand feet away as the gun was fired. We had no idea of there being any danger to the train, as its position was well away from the line of fire, and each of the preceding projectiles had behaved so well. But, this time, the torpedo glanced from the sand-butt, and went after that train. We stood paralyzed with dread as we saw it pass over the train, close to the roof of a car, and strike in the swamp just beyond it, perhaps a couple of hundred feet behind the track. An inverted cone of black earth shot up, followed by a dull sound.