is 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. We stood a
little aside in obedience to a wave of the young officer's arm. Then he
crossed the street to pick up a long piece of burning wood, and came
back, the moonlight and the firelight playing by turns upon him.

I honestly confess that, fierce as the heat was, I turned cold. The
experiences of the next few minutes were as follows: I saw the young
engineer fire the train, and I heard a puff, and then I saw him fall,
face downwards, behind the tank. I gave a cry, and started forward, and
was brought up short by a back-hander on my chest from the sergeant.
Then came a scrambling, rushing sound, which widened into a deep roar,
shaking the ground beneath our feet, and then the big building at which
we were gaping seemed to breathe out a monstrous sigh, and then it fell
in, and tumbled to pieces, quietly, swiftly, and utterly, like a house
of cards.

And the fantastic-looking young officer got up and shook himself, and
worried the bits of charred wood out of his long yellow moustaches.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Die Welt kann dir nichts darbieten, was sie von dir nicht
empfinge."--SCHILLER, _Der Menschenfeind_.

After Alister had done the captain's business, he made his way to the
post-office and got our letters, thinking, as he cannily observed, that
in widespread misfortunes the big are implicated with the little, that
fire spares public buildings no more