and my hand began again to slip.

The Feldscher also began to feel the strain.
Once he asked me to stop.

He apologised; I could see the sweat pouring down his face: "A very big man'" he said.
Whether it were the echo, whether my ears had by this time been utterly deafened and confused I do not know, but now the shock and rumble of the cannon seemed to come directly from under my feet.

I felt perhaps as though I were on one of those railways that I have seen in London at a fair when the ground shakes and quivers beneath you.

It really would not have surprised me had the earth suddenly yawned and swallowed me.