As I groped my way in, the sergeant and Dennis came out, and by the time that they and some soldiers returned, dragging pieces of house-gutters after them, the fantastic young officer was pouring the gunpowder into a heap in the middle of the floor, by the light of a corner of the ceiling which was now on fire, and I was holding up a shutter, under his orders, to protect it from premature sparks.

When he set down the barrel he shook some dirt from his fingers, and then pushing back his white shirt-sleeves from his wrists; he filled his joined hands as full with gunpowder as they would hold, and separating them very slightly let a tiny stream run out on to the floor as he walked backwards; and, as fast as this train was laid, the thin line was covered from falling embers by the gutters turned over it upside down.
Through the room, down along a passage between two houses, and so into the street, where the crowd had more or less assembled again.

Then the officer emptied his hands, dusted them together, and said, "Clear everybody out." The sergeant saluted--"May I fire it, sir ?" "No, thank you, sergeant; clear everybody out." The sergeant was evidently disappointed, and vented this on the civilian public.--"_That_" said he, turning a blackened thumb over his shoulder, "is a 'eap of gunpowder.

It's just a going to be hexploded." There was no need to "clear everybody out." _They went_.

And we found ourselves alone with the soldiers, who were laughing, and saying that the crowd had taken a big cast-iron tank for the heap of gunpowder.