Another moment and they would have been too late; for "time and tide," and ships going out on trial, wait for no man, or boy either.
However, there they were, "better late than never," Bob thought, and he thought further, too, as he gazed round the deck of the ironclad, which was somewhat begrimed with coal-dust, and about the ugliest and most mis-shapen monster imaginable, "Can I really be on board a ship ?" He was, though; and, presently, the sound of the escape steam, that had previously been roaring up through the rattling funnels, ceased; while the fan-blades of the screw-propeller began to revolve, surging up the water of the open dock in which the vessel lay into a mass of foam, and creating, so to speak, a sort of "tempest in a teapot." Then, a couple of attendant tugs sent their tow-ropes aboard, so as to check and guide the unwieldy leviathan in her progress through the deeper channels of the harbour which ships of heavy draught have to take to get out to sea; and "going easy," little by little, with an occasional stop, as some impertinent craft or other got into the fairway, they finally reached Spithead.
"What is that funny red vessel coming down to us for ?" inquired Bob, pointing out a dandy-rigged yawl that just then rounded-up under the stern of the _Archimedes_, laying-to a little way off.

"She's coming alongside, I think." "That's the powder-hoy," replied the Captain.

"She's brought the ammunition for our big guns here." "And why is she painted red ?" asked Bob again--"eh ?" "Just for the same reason that danger-signals on railways and warning flags are always red," said the other.

"I suppose because the colour is more glaring and likely to be taken notice of; and no doubt, too, that's why our soldiers are clothed in scarlet so that they can be all the more readily potted by the enemy ?" "You are pretty right there, Captain Dresser!" said, laughingly, a young naval officer standing near, who kindly took all further trouble off the Captain's hands in the way of answering Bob's questions and showing him round the ship, the machinery of which especially charmed him, being so much more imposing and complicated than that of the poor _Bembridge Belle_, which had interested him only yesterday, so to speak, though now washed to pieces by the relentless sea! The movements of the eccentric aroused Bob's chief wonder, the two piston-rods connected with it and guiding the motion appearing in their working like the crooked limbs of a bandy-legged giant "jumping up and down," as he expressed it, "in a hoppety-kickety dance." Bob was called up from the engine-room by an extraordinary sound that proceeded apparently from the deck above.
This, as he ascended, grew louder and louder; until it became to him really awesome.
"What is that ?" he asked the young lieutenant, who had accompanied him below and now followed him up, keeping close to his side.

"Has anything happened, sir ?" "No, nothing's happened," replied the young officer, who was a bit of a wag.