The next day I brought
some nails, a hammer, a saw, and a box of paints from the _Speranza_;
and I painted the rings in different colours, cut down a slim
lime-trunk, nailed the thin disc along its top, and planted it well,
before the steps: for I said I would make a bull's-eye, and do rifle and
revolver practice before it, from the avenue. And this the next evening
I was doing at four hundred feet, startling the island, it seemed, with
that unusual noise, when up she came peering with enquiring face: at
which I was very angry, because my arm, long unused, was firing wide:
but I was too proud to say anything, and let her look, and soon she
understood, laughing every time I made a considerable miss, till at last
I turned upon her saying: 'If you think it so easy, you may try.'
She had been wanting to try, for she came eagerly to the offer, and
after I had opened and showed her the mechanism, the cartridges, and how
to shoot, I put into her hands one of the _Speranza_ Colt's. She took
her bottom-lip between her teeth, shut her left eye, vaulted out the
revolver like an old shot to the level of her intense right eye, and
sent a ball through the geometrical centre of the boss.
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