During these days of harrowing suspense I saw much of Fidette.
Together we had walked into her father’s cabin one afternoon and she was showing me its treasures. In an artistically designed hanging basket of woven sea grass I noticed a dozen or more orange-like spheroids, quite resembling the fruit in shape and color. I at first mistook them for the real thing, wondering whence they had come. But, on closer inspection, I recognized them as specimens of detonating bombs, manufactured in Wilmington, Del., and used upon the Fourth of July and other national holidays to add to the noise and the enthusiasm of the occasion.
They are fired from small mortars, and are hurled to a great height in the air. When their velocity is exhausted they explode. They are filled with charcoal and a fulminate similar to that with which percussion caps are charged. They are the most dangerous fireworks used, and the manufacturer will only sell them to the most experienced exhibitors.
A terrible experience enabled me to recognize these deadly missiles at a glance. Only a few years before I had been bound up the Delaware to Philadelphia for charter when the captain decided to anchor off Wilmington, owing to fog, and I, as first mate, was sent ashore to proceed to the Quaker City by train, in order to report to our principals. I had succeeded in finding the mouth of Brandywine Creek, and was rapidly ascending it toward the nearest street to the railroad station, when, the mist having lifted, I saw that I was near a large brick factory at which fireworks were made. The exterior of the building announced the fact and bore the name of the company.
Just as I was passing this building, that faced the little creek, a terrific explosion occurred within its walls. The entire side of the structure was blown out, and one unfortunate man was hurled almost over my head into the water. Believing that I could render aid to the wounded—and I was confident there must be many—I told my men to land me at the little wharf near the works, and hurried into the building. All was wreck and confusion. Two dead women and five dead men lay about the room. Almost without exception they were unscarred and appeared to have died from concussion. In a box, each carefully separated by a layer of cotton, lay several hundred of these papier-mâché-encased bombs.
They were exactly similar in color to those I saw before me.
Evidently the Kantoon did not know the dangerous character of the pretty yellow spheres that occupied so prominent a place in his quarters. Just at this moment the good man entered, and I asked him how they had come into his possession.
Taking one up, playfully, he explained, as he tossed it about from one hand to the other, that they had been found in a box of wreckage that had floated into the canal several months before, and had been picked up by one of his boat crews. The box had been in the water several months, but it was hermetically sealed.
“Oh! they are all right,” he said, carelessly.
The Kantoon admitted that he had no idea to what use the orange-hued spheres were put. He had been in the habit of making ink from their contents, which Fidette had used in decorating shells, fish scales and sharks’ teeth.