“‘_Prepare!_’ The gunner’s mates stand you on your toes, and tell you to lean forward and thrust your tongue out of your mouth. You hear the creaking of machinery. It is a moment of intense suspense. Gradually a glimmer of light—an inch—a flood. The shield passes from the opening—the gun runs out. A flash, a roar—a mad reeling of the senses, and crimson clouds flitting before your eyes—a horrible pain in your ears, a sense of oppression on your chest, and the knowledge that you are not on your feet—a whispering of voices blending with the concert in your ears—a darkness before your eyes—and you find yourself plump up in a heap against the padding, whither you have been thrown by the violence of the concussion. Before you have recovered sufficiently to note the effects I have endeavoured to describe, the shield is again in its place and the gun ready for re-loading. They tell you that the best part of the sound has escaped through the port-hole, otherwise there would be no standing it, and our gunner’s mate whispers in your ear: ‘It’s all werry well, but they busts out bleeding from the chest and ears after the fourth discharge, and has to be taken below.’ You have had enough of it too, and are glad that they don’t ask you to witness another shot fired. “Since the _Miantonoma’s_ time vast improvements have been made in the matter of turret firing. The guns are now discharged by means of an electric spark, which obviates the necessity for having anyone in the turret, and is certainly a great blessing. “‘And what do you think of her?’ I asked a boatswain’s-mate. ‘Think of her, sir!’ he replied. ‘I think, sir, that she’s a floating coffin, and I would as soon live in ——. Every time we’re out of harbour she goes under water, and don’t come up till we get in again, as the saying is. We are just cooped up here waiting for a big wave to come and swallow us, for she don’t rise to the waves, she goes through ’em.’ Then, becoming more confidential, ‘Tower of the world be hanged, sir! None of us believe we’ll ever see Queenstown, and if we only had a chance to get ashore, there ain’t a man but what would desert, I guess.’