"Look,
these bags; not sand-bags at all! It's powder, old chap, powder! Their
whole supply. Wait a bit--oh, by Jove, wait a bit!"
He scurried back into the hill like a great rat, returned as quickly and
swiftly, and with eager hands began to uncoil something on the clay
threshold.
"Do you know enough to time a fuse?" he whispered. "Neither do I.
Powder's bad, anyhow. We must guess at it. Here, quick, lend me a
knife." He slashed open one of the lower sacks in the bulkhead by the
door, stuffed in some kind of twisted cord, and, edging away, sat for an
instant with his knife-blade gleaming in the ruddy twilight. "How long,
Rudie, how long?" He smothered a groan. "Too long, or too short, spoils
everything. Oh, well--here goes."
The blade moved.
"Now lie across," he ordered, "and shield the tandstickor." With a
sudden fuff, the match blazed up to show his gray eyes bright and
dancing, his face glossy with sweat; below, on the golden clay, the
twisted, lumpy tail of the fuse, like the end of a dusty vine. Darkness
followed, quick and blinding. A rosy, fitful coal sputtered, darting out
short capillary lines and needles of fire.
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