“Well, get a mallet, then,” said Roy; and the old man went to his tools used for repairing the armour, carpentering, or any other odd jobs, and brought out a mallet, with which he was about to strike a tremendous blow in the middle of the block, when Roy checked him.
“No, no!” he cried; “give it to me. I’ll knock a piece off the top edge.”
Ben handed the mallet respectfully enough, but he shook his head as if he did not consider that handling mallets was correct for the castellan of the place; while raising the implement not without some shade of doubt as to whether an explosion might follow the blow, but reassuring himself as he remembered that the mallet was only wood, Roy brought it down on the top with a sharp rap, and then started back in dismay, for a piece like a fragment of black potsherd fell upon the table with a bang, and a stream of fine grains came flowing out of the great hole he had made, covering the hardened piece and running on like black sand.
“Hurrah!” shouted Ben, excitedly; “they’re all right, sir. Just formed a cake outside, and the inside’s all safe and good. Twelve good brass guns, and plenty of powder. We’re ready for all the enemies the king has got in this part of the world. Now we’ll see for a couple of cartridges for the guns.”
He fetched a couple of small bags, which he filled with the powder, and then, after putting back the unbroken keg-shaped block, as carefully cleared all the loose powder from the table, and placed that and the shape from which it had come in the oak closet, which he locked.
“Powder’s powder, sir; so one has to take care,” he said. “Now for a touch port-fire, and we’ll try what sort of stuff it is.”
Ben gave Roy a knowing look, and then from a drawer in the table he took a piece of prepared oakum such as was used for lowering into the pan of a freshly primed gun, stepped to a case in which were some old rammers, and declared himself ready to start, but hesitated and went to his tool-drawer again, out of which he routed a long thin spike.
“Now I think we’re ready, sir,” he said, and they went out to where the men were waiting, and prepared to load the two guns under the gate tower.
“These are only makeshifts,” said Ben, apologetically, as he indicated his rough cartridges; “but they’ll do to clear out the guns,” and he set them down in the door-way leading into the old guard-room.
Then the long thin pin was tried in the touch-holes of both guns, and after a good deal of poking and drilling the orifices were cleared. Meanwhile, one of the troopers took the rammer Ben had brought out, inserted it at the muzzle, and found that it would only go in half-way. So a ragged stick was fetched, run in, twisted round and round, and withdrawn, dragging after it a wad of horsehair, cotton, hay, and feathers, while a succession of trials brought out more and more, the twisting round having a cleansing effect upon the bore of the gun as well.