There!" The three gunners were near the cannon, calm and phlegmatic, putting a hand to their eyes, in order to see better the almost invisible speck which the captain was pointing out.
None of them noticed the slant that the deck was slowly beginning to take.

They thrust the first projectile into the breech of the cannon while the gunner made an effort to distinguish that small black cane hardly perceptible among the tossing waves.
Another shock as rude as the first one! Everything groaned with a dying shudder.

The plates were trembling and falling apart, losing the cohesion that had made of them one single piece.

The screws and rivets sprang out, moved by the general shaking-up.

A second crater had opened in the middle of the ship, this time bearing in its fan-shaped explosion the limbs of human beings.
The captain saw that further resistance was useless.