“Spring out the moment you have lit the fuse,” he shouted.
“All right,” cried Mark impetuously, as, bending down, he rapidly struck a wax match and held it to the string fuse; and then—he could not have explained why—stood over it as if affected by some nightmare-like feeling, watching the tiny sparkling of the damp powder as it began to run along the string towards the hole.
“Mr Mark!” shouted the little sailor. “Run—run!”
The boy started violently, turned to look at the speaker, then back at the faint sparkling of the fuse, and then stared helplessly again after those who were now standing some little distance away.
“Yah! Run!” yelled Buck Denham, and as he shouted he snatched off Dean’s hat and sent it skimming like a boomerang right away over the bushes, though, unlike a boomerang, it did not come back.
It affected his purpose, though, for startled by the driver’s fierce yell, and his attention being taken by the flying hat, Mark made a dash, climbed out of the hole, rose to his feet, and had begun to run for safety, when the explosion came with a roar; and it was as if a giant had suddenly given the boy a tremendous push which sent him flying into the nearest bushes, out of which he was struggling when Dean and Buck Denham came running through the smoke and fragments of earth and cement which were falling all around.
“Oh, Mark, don’t say you are hurt!”
“Why not?” said Mark slowly, as he snatched at Buck’s extended hand and struggled out from amongst the thorns. “I am, I tell you,” continued the boy.
“Not much, sir, are you?” said the driver. “Only a bit pricked, eh?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mark slowly, as he began to squirm and alter the set of his clothes. “Yes, pricked a bit, though.”