ed the dark
nose of the governor's horse, which had been rubbing its head against
his shoulder. And then the governor rode away and left him.

The word "gunpowder" seemed to have brought soldiers to the spot in a
sort of natural sequence. There was more quick saluting and short
orders, and then all disappeared but one bronzed-looking sergeant, who
followed the engineer stripling up and down as he jerked his head, and
pulled his moustache, and seemed to have some design upon the gutters of
the house-eaves, which took a good deal of explaining and saluting. Then
we heard wheels and running footsteps, and I became sensible of great
relief from the pressure of the crowd. 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. 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 h