wedge had dropped out, and the step revolved like the
treadle of a fox-trap.

For a minute or two he lay stunned and senseless, with the lantern
before him on its side, and the candle burning a hole in the bubbly
horn. Slowly recovering his wits, he strove to rise, as the deadly peril
was borne in upon him. But instead of rising, he fell back again with a
curse, and then a long-drawn groan; for pain (like the thrills of a man
on the rack) had got hold of him and meant to keep him. His right arm
was snapped at the elbow, and his left leg just above the knee, and the
jar of his spine made him feel as if his core had been split out of him.
He had no fat, like Shargeloes, to protect him, and no sheath of hair
like Twemlow's.

Writhing with anguish, he heard a sound which did not improve his
condition. It was the spluttering of the fuse, eating its merry way
towards the five hundred casks of gunpowder. In the fury of peril he
contrived to rise, and stood on his right foot with the other hanging
limp, while he stayed himself with his left hand upon the ladder. Even
if he could crawl up this, it would benefit him nothing. Before he
could drag himself ten yards, the explosion would overtake him. His only
chance was to quench the fuse, or draw it away from the priming. With
a hobble of agony he reached the barricade, and strove to lift his
crippled frame over it. It was hopeless; the power of his back was gone,
and his limbs were unable to obey his brain. Then he tried to crawl
through at the bottom, but the opening of the rails would not admit his
body, and the train of ductile fire had left only ash for him to grasp
at.

Quivering with terror, and mad with pain, he returned to the foot of the
steps, and clung till a gasp of breath came back. Then he shouted, with
all his remaining power, "Polly, oh, Polly, my own Polly!"

Polly had been standing, like a statue of despair, beside the broken
dial. To her it mattered little whether earth should open and swallow
her, or fire cast her up to heaven. But his shout aroused her from
this trance, and her heart leaped up with the fond belief that he had
relented, and was calling her and the child to share his fortunes. There
she stood in the archway and looked down, and the terror of the scene
overwhelmed her. Through a broken arch beyond the barricade pale
moonbeams crossed the darkness, like the bars of some soft melody; in
the middle the serpent coil was hissing with the deadly n