friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life, for he
is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him; and now
condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by dynamite!
The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope; he saw the
Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the
railing. It is probable he fainted.

When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.

"My God!" he cried.

"You seem to be unwell, sir," said the hireling.

"I feel better now," cried poor M'Guire: and with uneven steps, for the
pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his footing, he
fled from the scene of this disaster. Fled? Alas, from what was he
fleeing? Did he not carry that from which he fled, along with him? and
had he the wings of the eagle, had he the swiftness of the ocean winds,
could he have been rapt into the uttermost quarters of the earth, how
should he escape the ruin that he carried? We have heard of living men
who have been fettered to the dead; the grievance, soberly considered,
is no more than sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him
who should be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.

A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his liver:
suppose it were the hour already. He stopped as though he had been shot,
and plucked his watch out. There was a howling in his ears, as loud as a
winter tempest; his sight was now obscured as if by a cloud, now, as by
a lightning flash, would show him the very dust upon the street. But so
brief were these intervals of vision, and so violently did the watch
vibrate in his hands, that it was impossible to distinguish the numbers
on the dial. He covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space,
it seemed to him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety. When he
looked again, the watch-plate had grown legible: he had twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes, and no plan!

Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a little
girl of about six drawing near to him and, as she came, kicking in front
of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She sang, too; and something
in her accent recalling him to the past produced a sudden clearness in
his mind. Here was a God-sent opportunity!

"My dear," said he, "would you like a present of a pretty bag?"

The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it. She had
looked first at the bag, like a true child