And almost within an arm’s reach of Abbazia, just a few yards off in the bay, is one end of the target range of an ever-busy manufacturing plant, whose product has tended more to evolutionize warfare than any device ever invented, the Whitehead torpedo factory. On this range the great fish-like instruments of destruction are tested thoroughly, their parts adjusted and tested again, to assure their deadliness, before shipment to the arsenals of the powers supplied. At one end of the range is the firing station, and in a long line, stretching away toward Abbazia, are the several floating targets, each manned by a signalman with a red flag, under the centres of which the torpedoes must eventually be made to dart before they are ready for delivery. Industrious little power boats shoot up and down the bay collecting the “dead” torpedoes, which, having spent their energy, turn finally from their course and splash about on the surface of the water like wounded porpoises, to tow them back to the launching station for an adjustment of their parts. What if a torpedo would come to the surface prematurely and hit one of the targets? Some do, and rip great holes in the wooden decks, causing the signalmen to execute some nimble acrobatics, but there is never any danger from explosion, because the “war-heads” of the torpedoes have not yet been put in place; all they carry are the steering-gears and the little compressed air engine. Once in a while, owing to a serious defect in the steering-gear, one will run amuck a few seconds after it has been discharged. Then is the time for the launches to be on the _qui vive_, for there is no telling what direction the torpedo will take. One of them once made a bee-line for the stone wall which skirts the bay in front of the factory. Like a leaping salmon it mounted this at one bound, bounced along the top for a few yards, demolishing stone-work and making the wall appear as if it had been struck by a thirteen-inch shell, and then plunged into the bay, tearing around this way and that until it made its final death-leap and lay peacefully upon the surface of the water. Then, like a naughty but remorseful boy, it was towed back and given a good spanking in the form of an overhauling of its parts.