“Ye do me justice, sirs,” saith she,
“Nor young nor old would I betray;
And yet it is small courtesy
To search the house of maid like me:
Ye merit not to find your prey.”
The searchers from the cottage door
Appear alone—their search was vain:
“Adieu, we trouble thee no more.
Mount! men, the country round explore!”
And off they scour across the plain.
“Now, rouse thee, Temujin! and tell
Why follow these thy trace so hot?
Ah! there is blood!—all is not well;
Say, honour’d guest, how this befel,
And yet the searchers found thee not.”
“I am indeed proscribed, proclaim’d,
The persecuted Temujin;
But be not of thy guest ashamed,
A rebel only because named
Great Khan, unlicensed from Pekin.
“These men pursue from avarice,
For greed of gold their search is keen;
Here nothing ’scaped their prying eyes,
They probed your cotton—pierced me twice,—
Still lay I motionless unseen.
“The wounds are slight and need no care;
But had they pierced my very breast,
Death I had taken from their spear,
And ne’er betray’d that I was here,
Lest thou had suffer’d for thy guest.”
“Ah! hath thy spirit such control
O’er nature’s impulse under pain?
Then wert thou born mankind to rule,
And hast indeed the noble soul
That Tartars look for in their Khan.
“But rest thee now till close of day,
Thy fortunes I have made my own;
This night my father’s trusty grey
Shall speed thee onward on thy way:
But ’tis not fit thou go alone.
“Myself will be the trusty guide,
To lead thee by the surest path;
Nor will I quit thy honour’d side
Till safe where Mongol friends abide
Thou mayst defy the tyrant’s wrath.
“Then, as thou wilt, or send me back
To sit and spin in this my home,
Or let me follow in thy track,
And with thy Mongol kin partake
Thy glorious destiny to come.”
“Nay, maiden, I accept not so,
The proffer of thy service tried;
Already life to thee I owe:
If thou’rt content with me to go,
Thou goest as my destined bride.”
The hosts of China gather’d are,
The emperor is at their head;
For freedom fights the brave Tartar,
Roused to resistance and to war,
By Temujin to battle led.
Conquest on his young banner waits,
Bright opens on him glory’s dawn;
From China to the Caspian gates,
The proudest kings and greatest states,
Yield to the mighty Jungeez Khan.
And she, the desert-given bride,
Who in the weary fugitive
The germ of this career descried,
Bravely she sits her lord beside,
And glories in her place of pride;—
Long shall her fame in story live.
THE ESSENTIALS OF ARMOURED SHIPS.
The results of shot—rifled shot, fired point blank at the armour plates of vertical sided ships, have turned public attention strongly to the importance of slanting the sides both above water and below, to such an angle that the shot may glance from them. In Number lxvii. of this work, I explained, with a diagram, this theory, which the “Times” calls Jones’ system, and I since find that Mr. Jones has taken out a patent, dated November 1, 1859. Long before this date, my MS. of English War Ships and their Uses, was in the editor’s hands, and on November 19th (No. xxi.),[1] the second part was published containing amongst other things, these words:—
“In the application of this armour, the size of the vessel and amount of displacement become most important. The enormous weight has a tendency to make the vessel top-heavy, and to set her rocking. But weight matters little when size is great. And these iron walls should be made to slope inwards at an angle of forty-five degrees, in which case it would be difficult to strike a plate direct with a shot. It would glance off, and the sloping inward would remove overhanging weight.”
The diagram in No. lxvii.[2] is simply the same thing explained in detail.
Mr. Jones’ specification was published in due course, on the 1st May, 1860—my description on the 16th of November, 1859.
But let not my readers suppose that I lay any stress on the prior demonstration of so obvious a principle, long recognised in many modes, such as the glacis of forts, the slopes of sea-walls, and other structures. Whoever has looked at the midship section of an old-fashioned line of battle ship, will have remarked that the bottom is nearly a hemisphere, with a small ridge called a keel at the lowest part. Upwards from this hemisphere the sides “tumble in,” so that the batteries of the three decks present a profile sloping inwards, at an angle of some twenty-five degrees. The object of this was evident—to keep the centre of gravity well within the base, and prevent the weight of the guns from rendering the ship top-heavy. Where the “tumbling in” point ceased, about the level of the upper deck, the bulwarks were made to curve outwards after the fashion of machicolated towers, whether to obtain a “line of beauty,” or for the purpose of making sure of catching the enemy’s shot, does not appear; but probably the object was to prevent the sea washing up the sides and on to the decks. Some reason, good or bad, is at the root of all our apparent arbitrary forms, and this is the most- ↑ See vol. i p. 431.
- ↑ See p. 398.
