"There is danger."
Mahommed smiled haughtily.
"Is the piece trained on the gate?"
"It is; but I pray"—
"Now if thou wilt not have me believe thee a dog not less than an unbeliever, rise, and do my bidding."
The Dacian, without more ado, put the loose end of the slow-match into a pot of live coals near by, and when it began to spit and sputter, he cast it off. His experts fled. Only Mahommed remained with him; and no feat of daring in battle could have won the young Padishah a name for courage comparable to that the thousands looking on from a safe distance now gave him.
"Will my Lord walk with me a little aside? He can then see the ball going."
Mahommed accepted the suggestion.
"Look now in a line with the gate, my Lord."
The match was at last spent. A flash at the vent—a spreading white cloud—a rending of the air—the rattle of wheels obedient to the recoil of the gun—a sound thunder in volume, but with a crackle sharper than any thunder—and we may almost say that, with a new voice, and an additional terror, war underwent a second birth.