The miniature fortress, which was made of cardboard, earth, and bricks,
was erected in a yard near our stables. Under its walls the torpedo was
placed, and the match lighted.
It was night and very dark. I had selected the hour as being that most
suitable to the destruction of an enemy's stronghold. The match was
very slow in burning. Matches invariably are so in the circumstances.
Suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps. Next moment, before I had time
to give warning, Jacob Lancey came round the corner of the stables with
a pitchfork on his shoulder, and walked right into the fortress. He set
his foot on the principal gateway, tripped over the ramparts, and
falling headlong into the citadel, laid its banner in the dust. At the
same instant there came a terrific flash and crash, and from the midst
of smoke and flames, the groom appeared to shoot into the air!
With feelings of horror I sprang to the rescue and dragged the poor
fellow from the smoking debris. He was stunned at first, but soon
recovered, and then it was found that one of the fingers of his left
hand had been completely blown off. Words cannot describe my feelings.
I felt as if I had become next thing to a murderer. Lancey was a tall
powerful man of about thirty, and not easily killed. He had received no
other injury worth mentioning. Although the most faithful of servants,
he was irascible, and I anticipated an explosion of temper when he
recovered sufficiently to understand the nature of his injury, but I was
mistaken. The blowing-up seemed to have quite cured his temper--at
least as regarded myself, for when I afterwards went to see him, with a
very penitent face, he took my hand and said--
"Don't take on so, Master Jeffry. You didn't do it a purpus, you know,
and, after all, it's on'y the little finger o' the left hand. It'll be
rather hout o' the way than otherwise. Moreover, I was used to make a
baccy stopper o' that finger, an' it strikes me that the stump'll fit
the pipe better than the pint did, besides bein' less sensitive to fire,
who knows? Any'ow, Master Jeffry, you've got no occasion to grieve over
it so."
I felt a little comforted when the good fellow spoke thus, but I could
not forgive myself. For some time after that I quite gave up my
chemical and other experiments, and when I did ultimately resume them, I
went to work with extreme caution.
Not long after this event I went to college, and studied medicine. My
course was nearly completed when my dear father died. He had earnestly
desired that I should enter the medical profession. I therefore
resolved to finish my course, although, being left in possession of a
small estate named Fagend, in Devonshire, and an ample income, it was
not requisite that I should practise for a livelihood.
One morning, a considerable time after my studies were completed, I sat
at breakfast with my mother.
"Jeff," she said (my name is Jeffry Childers); "Jeff, what do you think
of doing now? Being twenty-four, you ought, you know, to have some
fixed idea as to the future, for, of course, though independent, you
don't intend to be idle."
"Right, mother, right," I replied, "I don't mean to be an idler,
nevertheless I don't mean to be a doctor. I shall turn my mind to
chemistry, and talking of that, I expect to test the powers of a
particular compound today."
"And what," said my mother, with a peculiar smile, "is the nature of
this compound?"
"Violently explosive," said I.
"Ah, of course, I might have guessed that, Jeff, for most of your
compounds are either violently explosive or offensive--sometimes both;
but what is the name of this one?"
"Before answering that," said I, pulling out my watch, "allow me to ask
at what hour you expect Bella home to-day."
"She half promised to be over to breakfast, if cousin Kate would let her
away. It is probable that she may arrive in less than an hour."
"Curious coincidence," said I, "that her lover is likely to arrive about
the same time!"
"What! Nicholas Naranovitsch?"
"Yes. The ship in which he sailed from St. Petersburg arrived late last
night, and I have just received a telegram, saying that he will be down
by the first train this morning. Love, you know, is said to have wings.
If the pair given to Naranovitsch are at all in keeping with his
powerful frame, they will bear him swiftly to Fagend."
It may interest the reader at this point to know that my only sister,
Bella, had been engaged the previous year to one of my dearest college
friends, a young Russian, whose father had sent him to finish his
education in England. My own father, having been a merchant, many of
whose dealings were with Russia, had frequently visited St. Petersburg
and twice my mother and sister and I accompanied him thither. While
there we had met with the Naranovitsch family.
Young Nicholas was now in the army, and as fine-looking a fellow as one
could wish to see. Not only was he strong and manly, but gentle in
manner and tender of heart. My sister Bella being the sweetest--no, not
quite that, for there _is_ a pretty young--well, no matter--Bella being,
as I may say, _one_ of the sweetest girls in England, he fell in love
with her, of course. So did she with him; no wonder! During a visit to
our place in Devonshire at the end of his college career, he and Bella
became engaged. Nicholas returned to St. Petersburg to obtain his
parents' consent to the union, and to make arrangements. He was rich,
and could afford to marry. At the time I write of, he was coming back,
not to claim his bride, for his father thought him still too young, but
to see her, and to pay us a visit.
"Now you know, mother," said I, "after the young people have seen each
other for half-an-hour or so, they will naturally want to take a walk or
a ride, and--"
"Only half-an-hour?" interrupted my mother, with one of her peculiar
little smiles.
"Well, an hour if you like, or two if they prefer it," I returned; "at
all events, they will want a walk before luncheon, and I shall take the
opportunity to show them some experiments, which prove the power of the
singular compound about which you questioned me just now."
"The explosive?"
"Yes. Its name is dynamite."
"And what may that be, Jeff? Something very awful, I daresay," remarked
my mother, with a look of interest, as she sipped her tea.
"Very awful, indeed," said I; "at least its effects are sometimes
tremendous."
"What! worse than gunpowder?"
"Ay, much worse, though I should prefer to say _better_ than gunpowder."
"Dear me!" rejoined my mother, lifting her eyebrows a little, in
surprise.
"Yes, much better," I continued; "gunpowder only bursts things--"
"Pretty well that, Jeff, in the way of violence, isn't it?"
"Yes, but nothing to dynamite, for while powder only bursts things,
dynamite shatters them."
"How very dreadful! What _is_ dynamite?"
"That is just what I am about to explain," said I. "You must know,
then, that it is a compound."
"Dear, dear," sighed my mother; "how many compounds you have told me
about, Jeff, since you took to chemistry! Are there no uncompounded
things--no simple things in the world?"
"Why, yes, mother; _you_ are a simple thing, and I only wish there were
a good many more simple things like you in the world--"
"Don't be foolish, Jeff, but answer my question."
"Well, mother, there are indeed some simple elements in creation, but
dynamite is not one of them. It is composed of an excessively explosive
oil named nitro-glycerine (itself a compound), and an earth called
kieselguhr. The earth is not explosive, and is only mixed with the
nitro-glycerine to render that liquid less dangerous; but the compound
is named dynamite, in which form it is made up and sold in immense
quantities for mining purposes. Here is some of it," I added, pulling
from my pocket a cartridge nearly two inches in length, and about an
inch in diameter. "It is a soft, pasty substance, done up, as you see,
in cartridge-paper, and this little thing, if properly fired, would blow
a large boulder-stone to atoms."
"Bless me, boy, be careful!" exclaimed my mother, pushing back her chair
in some alarm.
"There is no danger," I said, in reassuring tones, "for this cartridge,
if opened out and set on fire by a spark or flame, would not, in the
first place, light readily, and, in the second place, it would merely
burn without exploding; but if I were to put a detonator inside and fire
it by means of _that_, it would explode with a violence that far exceeds
the force of gunpowder."
"And what is this wonderful detonator, Jeff, that so excites the latent
fury of the dynamite?"
I was much amused by the pat way in which my mother questioned me, and
became more interested as I continued my explanation.
"You must know," I said, "that many powders are violently explosive, and
some more so than others. This violence of explosion is called
detonation, by which is meant the almost instantaneous conversion of the
ultimate molecules of an explosive compound (i.e. the whole concern)
into gas."
"I see; you mean that it goes off quickly," said my mother, in a simple
way that was eminently characteristic.
"Well, yes; but much more quickly than gunpowder does. It were better
to say that a powder detonates when it _all_ explodes at the _same_
instant. Gunpowder appears to do so, but in reality it does not. One
of the best detonators is fulminate of mercury. Detonating caps are
therefore made of this, and one such cap put into the middle of that
cartridge of dynamite and set fire to, by any means, would convert the
cartridge itself into a detonator, and explode it with a _shattering_
effect.
"A human being," I continued, "sometimes illustrates this principle
figuratively--I mean the violent explosion of a large cartridge by means
of a small detonator. Take, for example, a schoolmaster, and suppose
him to be a dynamite cartridge. His heart is a detonating cap. The
schoolroom and boys form a galvanic battery. His brain may be likened
to a conducting-wire. He enters the schoolroom; the chemical elements
are seething in riot, books are being torn and thrown, ink spilt,
etcetera. Before opening the door, the good man is a quiet piece of
plastic dynamite, but the instant his eye is touched, the electric
circuit is, as it were, completed; the mysterious current flashes
through the brain, and fires his detonating heart. Instantly the
gleaming flame shoots with lightning-speed to temples and toes. The
entire man becomes a detonator, and he explodes in a violent hurricane
of kicks, cuffs, and invective! Now, without a detonator--a heart--the
man might have burned with moderate wrath, but he could not have
exploded."
"Don't try illustration, Jeff," said my plain-spoken mother, gently
patting my arm; "it is not one of your strong points."
"Perhaps not; but do you understand me?"
"I think I do, in a hazy sort of way."
Dear mother! she always professes to comprehend things hazily, and
indeed I sometimes fear that her conceptions on the rather abstruse
matters which I bring before her are not always correct; but it is
delightful to watch the profound interest with which she listens, and
the patient efforts she makes to understand. I must in justice add that
she sometimes, though not often, displays gleams of clear intelligence,
and powers of close incisive reasoning, that quite surprise me.
"But now, to return to what we were speaking of--my future plans," said
I; "it seems to me that it would be a good thing if I were to travel for
a year or so and see the world."
"You might do worse, my boy," said my mother.
"With a view to that," I continued, "I have resolved to purchase a
yacht, but before doing so I must complete the new torpedo that I have
invented for the navy; that is, I hope it may be introduced into our
navy. The working model in the outhouse is all but ready for
exhibition. When finished, I shall show it to the Lords of the
Admiralty, and after they have accepted it I will throw study overboard
for a time and go on a cruise."
"Ah, Jeff, Jeff," sighed my mother, with a shake of her head, "you'll
never leave off till you get blown up. But I suppose you must have your
way. You always had, dear boy."
"But never in opposition to your wishes, had I? Now be just, mother."
"Quite true, Jeff, quite true. How comes it, I wonder, that you are so
fond of fire, smoke, fumes, crash, clatter, and explosions?"
"Really," said I, somewhat amused by the question, "I cannot tell,
unless it be owing to something in that law of compensation which
appears to permeate the universe. You have such an abhorrence of fire,
fumes, smoke, crash, clatter, and explosions, that your only son is
bound, as it were, to take special delight in chemical analysis and
combination, to say nothing of mechanical force and contrivance, in
order that a balance of some sort may be adjusted which would otherwise
be thrown out of order by your--pardon me--comparative ignorance of, and
indifference to such matters."
"Nay, Jeff," replied my mother, gently, with a look of reproof on her
kind face; "ignorance if you will, but not indifference. I cannot be
indifferent to anything that interests you."
"True; forgive me; I should have said `dislike.'"
"Yes, that would have been correct, Jeff, for I cannot pretend to like
the bursting, smoking, and ill-smelling things you are so fond of; but
you know I am interested in them. You cannot have forgotten how, when
you were a boy, I used to run at your call to witness your pyrotechnic,
hydraulic, mechanic, and chemic displays--you see how well I remember
the names--and how the--"
"The acids," I interrupted, taking up the theme, "ruined your carpets
and table-cloths, and the smoke stifled and blinded, while the noise and
flames terrified you; no, mother, I have not forgotten it, nor the
patient way you took the loss of your old silk dress, or--"
"Ah! yes," sighed the dear old lady, with quite a pitiful look, "if it
had been any other than my wedding dress, which--but--well, it's of no
use regretting now; and you know, Jeff, I would not have checked you for
worlds, because I knew you were being led in the right way, though, in
my folly, I sometimes wished that the way had been a little further
removed from smoke and smells. But, after all, you were very careful,
dear boy--wonderfully so, for your years, and your little accidents did
not give me much pain beyond the day of their occurrence. The poisoning
of the cat, to be sure, was sad, though unavoidable, and so was the
destruction by fire of the cook's hair; but the flooding of the house,
after the repairs you executed on the great cistern, and the blowing out
of the laundry window at the time the clothes-boiler was cracked, with
other trifles of that sort, were--"
The remainder of my mother's speech was cut short by a clattering of
hoofs.
Next moment my sister Bella came round the corner of the house at full
gallop, her fresh face beaming with the exercise, and her golden hair
streaming in the breeze.
She pulled up, leaped off her pony, and ran into the room. As she did
so, I observed a tall, soldierly man appear in the avenue, advancing
with rapid strides. Well did I know his grave, handsome face.
"Here comes Nicholas!" said I, turning round; but Bella had fled.
I observed that my friend, instead of coming straight to the room from
the window of which my mother and I had saluted him, turned sharp off to
the library.
I was running to the door to welcome him, when my mother called me back.
I turned and looked at her. She smiled. So did I. Without uttering a
word we both sat down to finish our breakfast.
"Ah! Jeff," said my mother, with a little sigh, "how I wish you would
fall in love with some one!"
"Fall in love, mother! What nonsense! How could I? No doubt there are
plenty loveable girls, and there _is_ one charming little--well, no
matter--"
At that moment Nicholas entered the room, heartily saluted my mother,
and cut short our conversation.