“Yes, yes—go on,” groaned the founder.
“Then she consented, and I made my plans.”
“Yes, I see,” replied the founder, “you were there with your men, and Sir Mark felt sure that you were coming. But yours was a mad revenge on him, and meant ruin and destruction to all.”
“I do not understand you,” said Gil, quietly.
“Did you think by blowing down part of the place to get her away in the confusion?”
“Blow down? The place?” said Gil. “We had not a charge of powder with us. I left it all on board.”
“Then it was the store below caught first,” said the founder, musingly; “but how—how?”
“I cannot tell,” said Gil.
“Wat Kilby,” exclaimed the founder, jumping at a cause for the terrible disaster; “he was smoking his tobacco by the entry, and must have thrown down the burning pipe.”
“Nay, he did not smoke; he was by my side bearing a ladder.”