Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/99

74 bomb must have set fire to the iron-clad, for a dense smoke arose. "A terrible confusion ensued on his deck; he drew out of the fight," turned tail, and steamed off at a tremendous rate. The Russian captain, with his little steamer shattered and torn, his officers dead or wounded, and his deck streaming with the blood of his brave crew, tried to keep up chase; but his rudder had been injured in the fight and soon became useless.

The lesson of this battle is that there is hardly any emergency in which a commander should yield without a fight. If this brave captain had stopped to calculate chances, he would have struck his flag without firing a gun. His calculations would have been a mistake, as such calculations almost always are. He might count the guns of his enemy, and estimate the speed of the ram, and the number of the crew, and still leave out the principal consideration,—the pluck of the hearts. Guns will not fire straight without steady aim, and strong bulwarks may be a shield for cowardly hearts.

Readiness to fight doubles the strength. All contests are worth watching for the sight of these golden lines.