"I think we're about ready for firing, Bill," said Mackay, shortly afterwards. "We'd better hurry up, too, seeing that there does not seem to be any one about to watch in the mean time."
The drill had been driven over eight feet down, at an angle of somewhat less than forty-five degrees, and Bob, making a rough calculation, considered that its extremity was at least four feet away from the surface of the rock in a straight line.
"We'll give it twenty-five cartridges, I think," mused Mackay, "an' the shock o' discharge should burst at least another foot inwards."
"I reckon something's bound to shift," murmured Emu Bill, as he deftly prepared the charges, and inserted the long fuse.
Bob watched the last operation with quiet interest, but not so Jack and the Shadow. They suddenly pranced off towards the cooking utensils by the fire, and began to drag them back out of range.
"Tea and damper is bad enough," groaned the Shadow, tenderly secreting the only two billy cans the expedition possessed; "but damper without tea would be howlin' starvation, it would."
"You doesn't need to worry, Shad," grinned Emu Bill. "There won't be much o' a scatter here."
And he calmly applied a lighted match to the end of the fuse, and stood for almost a minute, listening to its sputtering as the fire crept slowly down towards the gelignite, before he turned away. Another minute, two minutes, three minutes passed.
"I'm afraid we've had a misfire, Bill," said Mackay.
But just as he spoke the base of the mountain seemed to quiver and burst forward, then came a dull report, and when the smoke cleared away, a giant crack showed in the rock, but otherwise no evidences were left to indicate that a powerful explosive had been at work.