The soldiers had come back again, running a hand-cart with four barrels of gunpowder, and the public made way for them even more respectfully than for the governor.

As they set it down and wiped their faces, the sergeant began to give orders rather more authoritatively than his superior, and he also pointed to the gutters; on which the soldiers vanished as before.
"Can't we help, I wonder ?" said I.
"That's just what I'm thinking," said Dennis, and he strode up to the officer.

But he was busy with his subordinate.
"Well, sergeant ?" "Not a fuse in the place, sir." "Pretty state of things! Get a hatchet." "They sent one, sir." "All right.

This is the house." "The roof _'as_ caught, you know, sir ?" "The less time to waste," was the reply, and the young man took up a barrel in his hands and walked in with it, kicking the door open with his foot.

The sergeant must almost have trodden on his officer's heels, as he followed with the second, and before I could speak Dennis had shouldered the third.
"Here's diversion!" said he, and away he went.
There was the fourth barrel and there was I.I confess that I felt a twinge, but I followed the rest, and my barrel behaved as well as if it had been a cask of molasses, though the burning wood fell thickly over us all.