"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.