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Tom and I had crept into the largest gun that day, having found the tompion out.

Her sun awnings were still rigged, her torpedo-nets not out; even her fo'c'sle and quarter-deck guns were trained fore and aft, and still had their tompions in the muzzles.

She was lying close under the guns of the fort, and we could see that the tompions had been taken out of the guns, and that they were manned by some half-naked soldiers.

The fact is, having heard no sound of gunfire, I was so surprised that I foolishly asked someone if the Lion hadn’t blown out one of her tompions testing a circuit.

"Do you see any tompion in that gun?" he demanded.