looks like his own hair pulled out by the
roots), shoves it right, and shoves it left,
so that "the piece," traverses and enfilades
either side of the Spanish Debateable Land,
and rickets it up and down with a sort of
screw winch (I am not strong in science);
and now from various holes and side-lockers
of the alcove where the gun's food,
furniture, and toilette traps are kept, draws out—
just as a fisherman would fish from the well
of a punt—different articles of shot and shell.
Some in cases like large chocolate pots, some
in bunches like grapes (fruit of Sodom, indeed),
some like poker-knobs: but none so elaborate
as the old Armada shot at the Tower,
with the chains and saws that sprang out as
they flew or struck. We asked him about the
smoke in the embrasures, if it would suffocate
the men or render aim impossible. Tompion,
looking as if he was writing to the Times,
says: "No, gentlemen, certainly not; except in
special kinds of wind, when it would blow
back on the gunners."

I could fancy Tompion presiding at a siege
with old Heathfield and Elliot looking on in
gold and scarlet. How soon he would know
all the tricks of his gun, how he would chide
and encourage his eight attendants, how
dapperly he would apply his linstock, how they
would cheer when a shot of theirs struck
the head of a column, or when they struck
down a pair of colours, or sent a powder-waggon
up to heaven!

But we loiter—on we go, Tompion duce,
I feeling incolumis with such a dux; upon
which Spanker laughs uneasily, and a little
forgetting his Horace says. "Homer was a
fine fellow, and, I dare say, liked his tumbler."
"Gentlemen, is that General O'Meara
you discourse about?" says Tompion, wishing
to come in; "as brave a soldier as ever
gave the word of command. I had a brother
served with him in New Orleans."

The clash of gates and some difficulty
with a strict padlock, gives me opportunity
to smile audibly. Spanker joins me in
whispers, "Rum old card, isn't he?"

The roof of this tunnel still shows the
marks of the pick and crow-bar's tooth, and
even the chiselled groove black in the lip
where the blasting-powder was rammed; now
a turn takes us past files of more cannon
leering through portholes into the crowning
wonder of the rock, "Saint George's
Hall."

It was smaller than I expected, and more
of the chapel than the cathedral; but is still
vast, grand, and wonderful, though my
imaginations, which cost no great architectural
labour in building, were vaster. It is
a huge rock chamber, vaulted out of rock
like a bandit's cave in a "bellow drama,"
or a sea-king's home as never was in a sea-side
poem. It has six port-holes on each
side. When the guns are run out, it resembles
nothing more than the gun-deck of Noah's
ark. The broadside it gives in thunder is
rendered possible by the fact that the hall is
scooped out in a sort of snout of the
rock. "The Spaniards," says Spanker, showing
his white teeth like a Skye terrier—
which is his usual sign when he means to be
funny—"say we chiselled the rock out of
them: but all I know for certain is, that we
chiselled this hall out of the rock." Tompion
as in duty bound, ceases to torment us
before our time with a shot with a wooden
bottom, and laughs "consumedly," as they say
in the old "stap me vitals" comedies. This
grim hall, where one would only expect
to find Alonzo the Brave and the fair
Imogene, is a favourite place for Gib
garrison pic-nics; and while they talk about
blood and powder here, make love, and
besiege "that fort men call a heart." On
those rock steps, leading to the higher
passage, the snowiest ball muslins sit and
discuss cold fowl and the "effervescingest"
champagner wein. Up that dark gallery,
lovers sigh and wander, and get lost,
enthusiastically found again; and, indeed, play all
the newest variations on the old, old theme
of Love.

Hark! as they say in tragical night scenes,
just before the ghost enters, to the "wind at
prayers." Is it not rare organ music, that
grand piping the wind breathes through the
flute-holes and arched embouchures that
stare at each other for ever across the hall.
What an anthem to England's dead and
brave; what an unshaped pæan to her
fame; what an unwritten and unwriteable
chant in the wind language, unpronounceable,
but awful, whether in rigging or vulgar
chimney-pot! Ten thousand ducats could I
but interpret it: one syllable of it, and I
were a poet greater than O'Meara himself,
or even the author of that fine epic, O'Ryan.

But Mr. Tompion waves his keys: and as
is the cock-crow to the errant spirit, I must
leave the wail of that sublime Niagara of
melodies. I must never discover where that
remarkable staircase winds up to, for I
forgot to ask Spanker if it is a well or a
ventilating shaft; and if I had, that most
gifted of subs would be sure not to have
known. As we screwed up, so we unscrewed
ourselves back down the rock, Spanker to
his underground bomb-proof quarters in
the Emperor's Bastion, to dress for mess;
and I to the Club House Hotel, to attire
myself for the theatre.

The details of that "screamer" of an opera
it will not be necessary for me to go into, it
being the not unknown Trovatore, and the
singers neither Mario nor Grisi: but this I
will say, that the storm that broke over us
during the second act was black as indigo,
and that the great, swift sword-cuts of the
lightning, stabs and probings of scorching
fire, outshone the golden lamplight, and
scared us with its turning the very stage
fire to mere glow-worm pallor.

The grand way Spanker showed me home,