“Come, comrades,” I called out in a careless tone, “lay aside your pikes, and I’ll show you something that I picked up on a battle-field in the war against the Algerines, something so curious, that if you had not slept a wink for three months and a day you would still be willing to keep awake and examine it.”
Saying this, I drew my musical snuff box out of my pocket, and tapping its lid mysteriously, tiptoed my way towards the outside entrance of the corridor, and beckoned them to follow me.
They did so, with the most comical expression of half-wonder and half curiosity depicted on their faces. But first they quietly set their grim-looking pikes in the rack against the wall.
Motioning them to lay their heads together and bend down so that they could see and hear—for I reached about up to their girdles. I touched the spring of the snuff box and it began to play.
It is impossible for me to give you any idea of the delight which shone upon their great, round smooth faces.
Their mouths fell open.
Their fingers twitched nervously, as if they longed to touch the little wonder, and yet dared not. I felt now that the moment had arrived for me to act.
Winding up the snuff box to its utmost limit, I thrust it into the hands of one of the guards, who seemed beside himself with joy, and showed him how to touch the secret spring.
As the music began again, they closed up their group so tightly that even if I had wished to remain one of the circle it would have been an impossibility. To my infinite satisfaction they now seemed to dismiss me most unceremoniously from their society.
More quickly than it takes to tell it, I drew a ball of strong twine from my pocket, and fastening the ends of their cues securely together, I retreated to the outside entrance of the palace and placed the other end of the string between Bulger’s teeth, with a motion that meant: