to himself, with a sort of wild, scowling grin upon his face,
whilst he inspected his brass box and little length of line; he then
shut the lamp and flashed it upon what I saw was a medium-sized barrel,
such, perhaps, as a brewer would call a four-and-a-half gallon cask.
It rested on its bilge, after the manner in which the casks behind
which I lay hidden were stowed.

I now saw him pull a spile or spike of wood out of the head of the
barrel, and insert the end of the black line attached to the small
brass piece in the orifice. This done he fitted a key to the brass box
and wound it up. He may have taken twenty turns with the key; the
lazarette was so quiet that I could distinctly hear the harsh grit of
the mechanism as it was revolved. All the while he was thus employed
he preserved his scowling smile, and whispered to himself. After he
had wound up the piece of clockwork he placed it on the bale where his
lamp had stood, and taking the light made for the hatchway, under which
he came to a stand whilst he extinguished the bull's-eye. I then heard
him replace the hatch, and knew he was gone.

The arrangement he had wound up ticked with the noise of a Dutch clock.
I had but little brains in those days, as I have told you, and in sad
truth I am not overloaded with that particular sort of cargo at this
hour; but I was not such a fool as not to be able to guess what the man
intended to do, and what that hollow, desperate ticking signified. Oh,
my great God, I thought to myself, it is an infernal machine! and the
ship will be blown up!

My horror and fright went far beyond the paralyzing form; they ran a
sort of madness into my blood and vitalized me into desperate instant
action. Utterly heedless now of hurting and wounding myself, I
scrambled over the casks, directed by the noise of the ticking,
stretched forth my hand and grasped the brass machine. I fiercely
tugged it, then feeling for the slow match, as I guessed the line to
be, I ran it through my fingers to make sure I had pulled the end out
of the barrel. The murderous thing ticked in my hand with the energy
of a hotly-revolved capstan, whilst I stood breathing short,
considering what I should do, whilst the perspiration soaked through my
clothes as though a bucket of oil had been upset over me. Heavens! the
horror of standing in that black lazarette with an infernal machine
ticking in my hands, and a large barrel of gunpowder, as I easily
guessed, with